S B 



I €l,ap. 1 

5.^ ■ . g 

i .l'ff™' STATES or AJIEIIIOA. | 



AN 



ESSAY 

ON 

AGRICULTURE; 

CONTAINING 

AN INTRODUCTION, IN WHICH THE SCIENCE OF 
AGRICULTURE IS POINTED OUT, BY A CAREFUL 
ATTENTION TO THE AV^ORKS OF NATURE; 

ALSO, 

THE MEANS OF RENDERING BARREN SOILS 
LUXURIANTLY PRODUCTIVE, AT A VERY 
MODERATE EXPENSE, AND OF BENEFICI- 
ALLY EMPLOYING THE INDUSTRIOUS AND 
UN-OCCUPIED POOR. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED, 

A MEMOIR, 

DRAWN UP, AT THE EXPRESS DESIRE OF 

HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE 

ARCH-DUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 

ON THE NATURE AND NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF 

FIORIN GRASS, 

WITH PRACTICAL REMARKS ON ITS ABUNDANT 
PROPERTIES, AND THE BEST MODE OF CULTI- 
■ VATING THAT EXTRAORDINARY VEGETABLE* 



By WILLIAM RICHARDSON, D,D. 



Itontion : 

PRINTED FOR WHITMORE AND FENN, 
CHARING CROSS, 



1818. 



B. R, HowUtt, Printer, 10, Frith Street, Soho. 



TO THE READER, 



The Publishers deem it necessary to premise, that this 
Essay was printed and sent to the Board of Agriculture^ 
to compete for the Premium of £100, offered by the Board 
to be adjudged to the Author of the most approved Paper 
on the following subject, viz. : — " On the best means of em- 
ploying the industrious and unoccupied poor and the 
Author was included among the successful candidates on 
that occasion, whose merits appeared to the Board so 
equally balanced, that the Premium was ordered to be 
divided in equal proportions among them ; but an objec-r 
tion was afterwards started, and proved fatal, that its being 
already printed, rendered it ineligible to compete for the 
Prize ; but as its failure was solely to be attributed to this 
circumstance, the Board to mark their approbation of its 
merits, unanimously voted Dr. Richardson the Honorary 
Medal. 

Mr. Curwen, in his recent publication, " On the State 
of Ireland," thus expresses himself: — " The planting of 
Fiorin must be a wise measure, as it brings surfaces which 
before were wholly unproductive, on a par with soils of 
infinitely superior quality in their neighbourhood; and 
when the immence number of such boggy acres in Ireland 
are taken into consideration ; the benefit which may be 
derived by the cultivation of Fiorin on them, becomes a 
most important object, and entitles Dr. Richardson to the 
thanks of his country." Vol. 2, p. 321. 



iv 



You were so good as to return niy visit, 
and to report most favourably of my exer- 
tions in the agricultural department I had 
selected for myself; and now when informed 
of my intention to pubhsh this Essay, you 
kindly contributed your powerful assistance, 
furnishing me with important topics, which 
unfortunatel}^, came too late for me to avail 
myself of them in this publication, already 
gone to London ; but I shall take the liberty 
here of making some observations upon 
them. 

Our ideas in general coincide, and our 
objects are the same, though our modes of 
pursuing them may be different, and mine 
rather novel. A variation in the measures to 
be adopted for the attainment of the same 
ends, may be a valuable acquisition : as where 
change of circumstances make certain mea- 
sures inapplicable, it must be of great im- 
portance to have others in reserve which may 
supply their place. 

We have, no doubt, an immense popula- 
tion to maintain, a large portion of which 
does not co-operate directly to their own sup- 
port ; and we know well, that the grain im- 
ported in the years antecedent to a late mo- 



meiitar}^ redundance, cost the nation above 
forty millions. 

To stop this ruinous expenditure, and to 
provide food for an increasing population, is 
a problem of vital importance, and happy 
shall we be, if in the solution of it, we find 
employment for the industrious and unoccu- 
pied poor. 

You carry your speculations still further, 
and " hope to see us become growers of 
grain, and instead of supplying Europe with 
manufactures, furnishing it with /bo^i and 
you say, " you do not know to what extent 
grain might not be multiplied, by the appli- 
cation of capital to agriculture/^ 

I know not any person so well qualified to 
pronounce upon this subject as you are ; — of 
long experience — acute penetration — and ex- 
tensive practice on every scale. Who can 
so well judge of the value of capital., in a line 
which you have so long pursued w ith the 
greatest zeal, and for your success in which 
you have obtained the highest applause ? 

Nor are you to suppose I entertain a dif- 
ferent opinion from you on the subject of 
capital, when I tell you, that in the following 
Essay, I in no one instance call for capital to 



vi 

aid me in carrying on the measures I suggest ; 
all tending directly^ or indirectly to our com- 
mon and grand object; — the increase of food 
for our increasing population, or its domestic 
animals ; — and this by the aid of the indus- 
trious and unoccupied poor. 

Capital is possessed by few ; and it is by 
the aid of numbers the greatest measures are 
most successfully carried. Instead, therefore, 
of calling upon capitalists^ I endeavour to 
rouse into action, the mass of proprietors, 
interested in the fields upon the improvement 
of which I call for their exertions. 

I have no rivalry v/ith capitahsts, nor the 
other skilful agriculturists, now in possession 
of the rich cultivated area, so extensive!}^ 
spread over our islands ; — I meddle with none 
of it; — I leave it with confidence in these 
able hands, and trust that by attention to the 
suggestions and examples of Mr. Curweis^, 
and such wdse speculators, and skilful prac- 
tioners, we shall see that area improved and 
extended, as far as ingenuity and merit, aided 
by capital, can enable it to reach. 

I request to be considered only as an hum- 
ble coadjutor, labouring to increase our stock 
of animal and vegetable food from a different 



vii 



and new area, and by novel measures, untried 
by preceding improvers. 

You complain to me, that part of your 
field is employed in a manner you do not like, 
and lament that " that some of your land of 
the best quality is applied to pasture and by 
skilful calculation, compute the quantities of 
animal and vegetable food, raised from equal 
areas, by pasture^ and by your favourite mea- 
sure of house soiling. 

You know that in this latter measure I am 
a powerful coadjutor; — you asked me, at 
Workington^ if I could assist you with soi/, 
in the critical interval between the end of the 
clover crops, and the coming in of turnips^ 
when you were distressed for food for your 
house cattle ; and you know I showed you in 
that very period^ on my own meadows, and on 
those of other friends, a fleece of grass far 
superior to your best clover crops ; and my 
friend. Sir James Stewart, has found by ac- 
curate experiments, that his fiorin meadows 
at Coltness, yield him a far greater quantity 
of vegetable food, than his best turnip crops. 

You cannot reconcile yourself to the ap- 
plication of so much good ground to pasture^ 
and you assert, the whole cattle of England 



VUl 



might be maintained on one third the land 
apphed to that purpose/" Surely you will 
acknowledge me as your coadjutor^ when you 
find that much of my speculations are em- 
ployed in creating new pastures^ by which 
the agriculturist will be greatly relieved from 
the load of cattle that you complain of. 

You also suggest a mode of increasing our 
supply of animal food, ( the improvement of 
our fisheries ) which, as you say, " would free 
-some of the lands of the best quality now 
applied to pasture/' — Will you not be grati- 
fied to see these lands restored to the agricul- 
turist, w^ien I find beyond your territories, 
abundant pasture for these same cattle, as 
you will soon see I do ? 

You call your favourite system of soiling to 
your assistance, in recovering some of the 
lands which ought to be applied to tillage : 
you say, " you calculate, you can rear and 
fatten a beast of sixty stone, on the produce 
of two acres ; — probably six acres of pasture 
would not supply an equal quantity;" and 
you sustain your positions by fair deductions 
from data, with which you are well acquainted. 

As your coadjutor^ I hope, in many instan- 
ces, to recover even these two acres for you, 



ix 



as the new grounds I mean to bring into pro- 
fit, which the agriculturist would not deign 
to expend labour upon ; will, I hop , cifford 
not only pasture^ but r^ i/ifer/ood for fattening 
cattle ; not indeed for beasts of sixty stone, 
but I answer for cattle forty stone, and 
to the full as good animal food for every pur- 
pose, but exportation. 

You say, " Nothing short of a miracle can 
stop the population of Ireland I admit o^ir 
population has been long increasing with 
alarming rapidity ; your increase in England, 
even during a bloody war, has been very for- 
midable ; but the question, whether it would 
be possible^ and prudent^ to arrest the progress 
of this population, is not the one inunedi- 
ately before us ;— admitting it to be decided 
in the affirmative, I much doubt our powers 
of interfering successfully ; the measures that 
have already been suggested for the purpose, 
are most of them z^eak ; some of them have 
been pronounced wicked, and I fear all in- 
applicable. 

We are not now to trouble ourselves with 
such speculations ; let us exert ourselves to 
raise food and find employment for our 



population, whatever it may be, permitte 
Divis ccEtera^ and shall our exertions produce 
a redundance, we have a sure resource in ex- 
portation, to which you, yourself, already 
look forward with an anxious eye. 

I am, Sir, 

Your sincere friend, 

and humble servant, 

W. RICHARDSON, D.D. 



ESSAY 

ON 

AGRICULTURE AS A SCIENCE- 



I HAVE often lamented, that Agriculture, far from being 
considered as a science, and treated as such, was reduced 
merely to a measure of practice, and left in the hands of 
persons little qualified to advance the theoretical know- 
ledge of this useful branch of learning, and little disposed 
to improve its practice, by changing the usages to which 
they were most obstinately attached, or even to admit that 
their practices were capable of receiving improvement. 

This earliest, and most necessary of all sciences, ought, 
as I think, to be considered as consisting of three separate 
departments, distinct from each other; the THEORETICAL, 
— the EXPERIMENTAL,— and the practical. 

The First, and Second, are at present quite absorbed 
by the Third, without any prospect of emerging in their 
proper and distinct characters. 

I shall endeavour to describe the qualities which I con- 
ceive the dormant personages representing these several 
departments ought to possess, and their respective offices. 

The THEORIST should be well acquainted with natural 
history in general, as well as with that of the several vege- 
B 



2 



tables we are used lo cultivate for our own consumption, or 
that of our domestic animals ; their habits, their j:} roper ties, 
their seasons of attaining perfection. He watches the 
progress of Nature with attention, and combines his gene- 
ral observations with those he has made on the particula- 
rities of each separate vegetable, and then speculates 
on the modes of culture best suited to them, and 
the soils best adapted to them, and likely to make them 
bring forward their produce in the greatest abundance, 
and highest perfection. 

Are the suggestions of the theorist to be immediately 
adopted, and carried into practice I By no means — they 
must undergo the test of experiment; — here the second 
department of the Agricultural School, as arranged by me, 
opens, and a new personage is introduced. 

The EXPERIMENTALIST should be careful, patient, and 
diligent, without prejudices, or even opinions on the 
subjects before him ; he is to make his experiments on the 
very smallest scale, so that he can diversify them without 
expence, and without having any interest in their success : 
— failure is to him exactly the same thing, as information 
is his sole object. 

This personage adopts the ideas, and if you please the 
whims of the theorist, which he is not to presume to call 
Utopian: —he gives them a fair and patient trial under dif- 
ferent circumstances, and on a small scale ; should he discover 
any thing in the slightest degree promising, he repeats, and 
varies his experiments until he satisfies himself, either that 
the measure is a vain one, or that it deserves attention ; in. 
this latter case, the experimentalist makes his report to the 
agriculturists, recommends to them to try the measure on 
a larger scale, and in actual practice. 

Even expence, ultimately so important, is not in an early 
stage to stop proceedings i for the object immediately 



3 



before the school is to devise, by what means the vegetable 
in their hands can be brought to the highest degree of 
perfection and iitihty : the question of expence comes 
next; this, on his diminutive scale, is nothing to the 
experimentalist, — but should it threaten to be weighty, 
the ingenuity of all parties is now to be exerted, to find 
succedanea; and a knowledge of the subject being acquired, 
measures may be devised, which will attain the object by 
more accessible means. 

The third character in the drama is the PRACTICAL 
AGRICULTURIST, of whom I complain that he has taken 
upon himself the whole three characters I mentioned : he 
treats the theorist with supercilious contempt, as presuming 
to obtrude his wild speculations into a department of which 
he considers himself as complete master. 

Hence improvements are discouraged, and discoveries 
that might have proved useful, are nipped in the bud. 

The second character I wish to introduce, does not yet 
exist ; whence it comes, that discoveries which have been 
forced into attention, rarely meet with a fair trial ; they 
are encountered by the practical farmer with prejudice, 
and even with jealousy. They are considered as obtru- 
sions ; and treated as uninvited, unwelcome strangers. 

Sometimes, indeed, the practical farmer persuades him- 
self, that he has assumed the character of the exj^erimen' 
talistj and tells us he has made the experiment ; — that is, 
he has cultivated a field in a particular way : but it is not 
from solitary trials on a great scale, that information is to 
be obtained; experiments lead us to knowledge by compa- 
rison ; they should be multiplied and diversified. 

Hence agriculture, as a science, is at a stand : — the 
present possessor of the field, perfectly satisfied with his 
own attainments, and in high admiration of his own 



4 



practices, (often very good) does not admit improvement to 
be necessary, and indignantly rejects any innovation. 

He is encouraged in liis contempt for theoretical spe- 
culations, by the ridicule which a witty author throws on 
the agricultural projectors of his day. 

It is just a century since Swift made a bitter attack on 
the Royal Society, which he describes, as a Set of 
Projectors lately incorporated hy Royal Patent.'' 

It is not for me to defend this respectable body : a century 
has intervened since this wanton attack was made upon 
them, and their merits or demerits are best appreciated 
by their intermediate proceedings and transactions. 

My object in referring to the passage in Swift's 
Laputa, is to throw light on the arrangement T have 
made in the agricultural science, and to afford proof of its 
propriety. 

Sw^iFT says, " the professors contrive new rules and 
methods of agriculture— new instruments and tools ; all the 
fruits of the earth shall come to maturity, at whatever 
season we think fit to choose, and increase an hundred fold 
more than they do at present." 

He states, " the result of all this to be, that none of 
these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the 
mean time the whole country lies miserably wasted, by all 
which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times 
more bent on prosecuting their schemes." 

Admitting this to be a fair account of the facts in Swift's 
day, (which I much doubt) the picture he draws is a neces- 
sary result of his own statements, from which we can infer, 
— That in his time projectors were wild and speculative, 
practical agriculturists not quite so averse from innova- 
tions as at present, but equally tenacious of their practices 
when once adopted. 



5 



The whole mischief (admitting- it to have existed) obvi- 
ously arose from Swift's having- omitted a personage in 
the agricultural drama ; forming a coalition between the 
wild theorist and the positive practical farmer ; omitting 
the intermediate personage, the experimentalist, who 
would have protected them both from mischief ; suppressing 
the extravagancies of the projector, and paying every at- 
tention to his suggestions that bore the test of experiment ; 
and suffering nothing to pass into practice, which did not 
afford a reasonable prospect of advancing the agricultural 
science, and multiplying the benefits derived from it. 

Let us try two or three agricultural questions, by the 
test of the arrangement I have suggested, and we shall 
see what progress the science has made without them, and 
to what state it probably would have advanced, had they 
been adopted. 

r commence with the Gramma^ my own immediate de- 
partment. The importance of grassy produce to the agri- 
culturist is obvious : his summer pasture, and winter 
provision for his cattle, are derived from the Gramina ;— 
for the latter, hay is his grand resource. 

Nature has been very liberal to us in this department, 
and has given us, as my friend Sir Humphry Davy 
states, 215 varieties of grass, of which he complains, prac- 
tical agriculturists sow but two, rye-grass and cock's-foot ; 
the latter too is of very recent introduction, and first re- 
commended to the world by myself. 

The seedsmen, indeed, who have the commodity for 
sale, are very ready to recommend certain varieties of 
grass, and to state the proportions in which their seed 
ought to be mixed. 

I have on former occasions (and have not yet done) 
exposed the consummate ignorance, and mischievous dis- 
honesty of these charlatans. 



6 



We have Sir Humphry Davy's high authority for the 
wretched progress this important branch of agriculture 
has made. Let us then suppose it to be taken out of the 
possession of mercenary seedsmen and opinionated far- 
mers, and placed in the hands of the agricultural school, ar- 
ranged as I have supposed, and we may easily foretell the 
result. 

The THEORIST takes up the question a priori, and 
inquires what are the uses to which the gramina are 
appUed 1 and then, with a reference to these uses, what are 
the qualities, or properties that should make a grass 
valuable ? He soon finds three are predominant, earliness, 
luxuriance, and quick jwweis of rej^roduction when 
mowed or eaten down. 

The theorist now hands over the question to the ex- 
perimentalist, and desires him to find out by numerous 
experiments, what varieties possess these properties in 
the highest degree, that they may be recommended to the 
practical farmer. 

Sir H. Davy now steps in to aid both: he states, a priori, 
another most valuable property of grass, the quantity of 
nutritive matter produced by a given portion of each, and, 
availing himself of his exquisite chemical skill, he makes 
the experiments himself, and gives the valuable result 
to the world. 

I know not any question in Rural practice that more 
requires the interference of the scientific theorist than the 
proper period for mowing, nor any point upon which the 
practical farmer is more ignorant or more opinionated. He 
prides himself on having saved his bay before others, and 
boasts of its fragrance and tea-like verdure. 

The THEORIST acquainted with natural history would 
have told him, that the juices of all vegetables attain their 



7 



greatest perfection in their inflorescence, — that it is at this 
period alone, all extracts from vegetable substances are 
taken ; and as in the case of hay the whole vegetable is 
preserved, it is of great importance that it should be mowed 
in its highest state of perfection, that is, when the pre- 
dominant varieties of grass are in flower. 

The practical farmer knows nothing of all this. He has 
his own rules for deciding on maturity, and generally cuts 
his crop, before either the cock's foot or the rye grass (the 
two earliest of our predominant grasses) are in flower. 

I sometimes feel an ill-natured pleasure, when I see the 
trampcocks of these early gentry collapse considerably for 
want of substance, giving evidence of premature mowing, 
and establishing the inferiority of the hay. 

Here the experimentalist would be useful, by enabling 
us to compare portions of hay from the same crop, cut 
at different periods ; — even the farmer himself, would he 
condescend to doubt, might soon satisfy himself, by leaving 
the amount of a trampcock uncut for one, two, or perhaps 
three weeks later than the rest, he would probably find 
his hay firmer and better ; he is certain, also, the quantity 
is somewhat increased. 

Were the arrangement I recommend adopted, many 
agricultural questions of much importance would receive 
speedy solutions. — That of the proper seasons for sow- 
ing our several grains has been much agitated. 

Upon this question the theorist would pronounce gene- 
rally, that agricultural policy directed the season for 
sowing each vegetable to be so chosen, that it might remain 
above ground in the very best portion of the year, neither 
exposed unnecessarily to late frosts in its tender state, 
nor to premature winter severities when ripening its seed. 

Hence the season for sowing each vegetable, should b^ 



8 



determined by the interval between the seed and the 
sickle, which nature has assigned to each species, corre- 
sponding with the period of gestation in animals, and unal- 
terably fixed at the time of their original formation. Upon 
this principle it is obvious, that the vegetables of slowest 
growth should be sown first, while those of quicker progress 
should be delayed longer. 

The question has now reached the experimentahst, who 
will probably sow many varieties in distinct plots on the 
same, day, and by accurately observing their times of 
ripening, will make himself acquainted with their respective 
periods. 

What I recommend here as experiment, is the actual 
practice in Egypt, where they sow all their grains, of 
whatsoever species, on the same day, that is, the first 
moment the retreat of the Nile gives them access to 
their land, just relieved from its annual inundation. 

We have scriptural authority for the result, marking the 
progress each separate grain has made in, the same time. 

Moses tells us, that at the time of a particular event, 
" the barley was in the ear, and the Jlax was boiled, but 
the wheat and the rye were not grown up." 

The experimentalist will now diversity his trials, and by 
sowing the same grain at different times, in many small 
plots, he will soon be able to determine how far, for the 
security of the young tendril, he can delay sowing, without 
throwing the mature plant into a season unfit for ripening 
its seed. 

It has been made a question, whether in selecting our 
corn for seed, we should choose our weightiest pickle, or 
whether the smaller and lighter might not answer just as 
well ; in other words, from which side of our winnowing 
heap are we to take our seed — the windward, or the lee- 



9 



ward ? The fuller, plumper, and larger grain, will not 
cover 30 much ground as the smaller, and is also of higher 
price ; hence by sowing the smaller and lighter grain, we 
should save considerably ; and Sir Joseph Banks is of 
opinion we may safely take our seed from the leeward side 
of the heap. 

Were the question brought before the agricultural school, 
arranged as I suppose, — the theorist would tell us, that the 
farina constitutes the whole value of the corn ; that this 
portion of the vegetable forms no part of its organic con- 
struction, has no connexion with the vital principle of the 
germ, but is merely a mass of unorganized matter, pro- 
vided by nature for the sustenance of the nascent plant, 
until by its roots it can extract food for itself ; that the 
farina in vegetables, corresponds with the yolk of the egg 
in oviparous animals. 

Now we observe that in every thing connected with the 
preservation of species, nature is not only liberal, but ge- 
nerally profuse, and (no doubt to provide against difficul- 
ties,) often redundant : — besides, the provision was made 
when the vegetable tribe was left to propagate itself, with- 
out any of the facilities devised by man, which he now 
gives to assist vegetation, and increase produce. 

More farina, it is obvious, would be required under the 
hardships of a state of nature ; and a greater quantity 
will be formed under cultivation, as animals fostered by 
man acquire a degree of obesity, which they never reach 
in a state of nature ; thus it appears the quantity of 
farina is increased, and the expenditure of it diminished ; 
of course it is highly probable, we may with safety avail 
ourselves of the redundance, that is, sow the lighter, and 
consume the weightier grain. 

The question is now brought before the experamentalist, 



10 



and one of the lightest he has to encounter : he need only 
sow a few small plots with seeds taken from the opposite 
side of the winnowing heap ; and by a careful comparative 
view of the crops when ripe, he will be able to pronounce 
upon the safety of the measure, and by attention he will 
soon discover what he will gain by pursuing it. 

The preservation of the vigour of our soils, and the 
reparation of the waste they sustain by our perpetual call 
upon them for crops, and consequent loosening of their 
texture by over-frequent cultivation, is a subject of vast 
importance, and has already excited much attention. 

The mechanical mode is simple ; to renovate and con- 
solidate our harassed and open soils by mixtures of firmer 
materials ; that is, compost formed of strong earth, or pure 
clay, well attenuated : but in loose, light, and sandy 
ground, such consolidating materials are rarely found ; 
the agriculturist is therefore thrown upon his own inge- 
nuity ; and I know not any instance in which it has been 
more successfully exerted. 

He has found, that by alternating what are known to be 
exhausting crops, with those that are deemed to be melio- 
rating, — culmiferous, with root crops — farinaceous, with 
green crops — he has brought his ground to bear more con- 
stant pressure than it was supposed capable of sustaining; 
still the exhaustion, though much abated, is evidently per- 
ceivable, and the Norfolk farmers complain their 
grounds are TIRING of their favourite turnip. 

Mr. Gregg, now become very eminent as a practical 
agriculturist, admits rest to be indispensably necessary, 
and recommends two successive crops of grass. 

To make that rest as effective as possible, let us specu- 
late a priori — Which are the grass crops that exhaust the 



11 



ground least ? — which are those that will consolidate, and 
renovate it most eflfectually, and which, daring the period 
of rest, will yield the greatest produce I 

It is in adversity, when the vegetables he is cultivating 
are attacked by various disorders, that the agriculturist 
will find the benefit of the arrangement I have suggested, 
as it will enable him to meet with strength, and I may say, 
discipline, the difficulties he will have to encounter. 

That the vegetables we cultivate should be subject to 
disorders, is to be expected ; since it appears, that not a 
single one of them is a native of the climate to which we 
have introduced them, all transplanted from regions more 
favoured by nature, habituated to a warmer, and generally 
a drier atmosphere. 

Thus then as the strangers we have transferred to our 
ungenial climate, have ac(iuircd disorders from which they 
were probably exempt in their own milder regions, it be- 
comes the duty of the naturalist, that is, according to my 
arrangement, the theorist, to investigate the causes of 
these disorders, and to exert his ingenuity in devising 
remedies, to which the experimentalist is to give a fair 
trial on a small scale. 

Many of these disorders, I apprehend, will be found to 
arise from parasitic plants attaching themselves to the 
one we foster, and intercepting its nourishment ; others, I 
know, will be found to proceed from myriads of microsco- 
pic animals invading our plant, and forming their nidus in 
the most delicate and important parts of its structure ; 
destroying its germ, or consuming and spoiling its farina. 

Here the theorist will advise various alterations in the 
culture of the vegetable, and in the periods of sowing the 
seed ; trying if he can discover what will be unfavourable 
to the invader, without injuring his grain. 



12 



Where the enemy is an animal ; — as we have good reason 
to believe every animal (at least insect) has its own poison, 
the theorist, by diversifying the experiments he orders, may 
be fortunate enough to discover what will be injurious to 
the hostile insect. 

Some of these are known to us, and (like the FLY so 
mischievous to our turnips) provoke the attack: — the 
slug, and cutworm, I find formidable enemies to our young 
mangel wurzel, and often oblige me to repair their depre- 
dations by new plants, and, as the season advances, to fill 
up the vacancies they have occasioned, by a quicker-grow- 
ing vegetable, requiring the very same culture, — the 
potato. 

That new enemies are pouring in upon us from the 
animal kingdom, is a fact too well known. Mr. Clerk 
thinks the mosquito, the torment of the inhabitants of tro- 
pical climates, is advancing on our more temperate re- 
gions. The cyder counties in England are alarmed by 
the invasion of new animalculae, hostile to their apple- 
trees ; and the peach, for a century the luxury of St. 
Helena, which had proved a favourite soil and chmate 
for that most delicious fruit, has been nearly exterminated 
in that island, by an insect imported from the Cape of 
Good Hope with the Constantia grape, but which seems 
to have considered the peach-tree as a more appropriate 
nidus ;— the lamentations of the inhabitants on this unex- 
pected calamity, are pitiable. 

The most formidable of the disorders by which our 
crops are injured, and for which the most numerous reme- 
dies have been suggested, seems to be the smut in wheat; 
this too I suspect to arise from the depredations of ani- 
malculse. The weight of the mischief requires unremitted 
exertions, and the steady co-operation of the theorist and 



13 



experimentalist : the former will suggest whatever occurs 
to himself, and he will make a list of the nostrums already 
recommended in our agricultural papers, even by tlie 
Grub-street gentry, who are very ready to obtrude them, 
as if they themselves, in their agricultural prac- 
tice, had tried them with success: any number of these 
experiments may be made on one ridge in a wheat field, 
without in the least disturbing the farmer in his process. 

Steeping the seed in various strong mixtures has been 
often recommended, and is said to have succeeded. No 
doubt this is commencing very early ; and the expectations 
are sanguine, that look, from medicating the seed, to affect 
the new germ nine months afterwards : still, however, the 
trial is easy, and the experimentalist is not allowed to pre- 
judge questions; but he should be most careful to mark 
the plots where his steeped seed is sown, to distinguish 
them from those where his plain wheat is sown. 

Until some nostrum shall be discovered injurious to the 
enemy, let us try if by any variation in our present prac- 
tice, we can strike out some process injurious to the in- 
vader, but inoffensive to our grain, and not affecting its 
produce. 

We have many varieties of wheat, bearded, smooth, &c. : 
the experimentalist is to discover which of these is least 
liable to be affected by blight or smut ; and having ascer- 
tained the proportions of their produce, he is then to 
decide, whether security from these disorders will be suf- 
ficient to compensate for some diminution of produce, 
admitting such to be the case with the new-chosen grain. 

Wheats have different periods of attaining their matu- 
rity : what the French call March wheat, is of quick growth, 
and is sown with us in February, on account of our more 
languid climate; or if our own earliest wheats were sown at 
later periods than usual, it is possible they may not afford 



14 



so good a nidus to the parasitic fungus, which my friend 
Sir Joseph Banks has discovered to be the cause of 
hlighty or to the animal or vegetable that produces the 
smut in our wheats, cultivated in the common way. 

Among my earUest recollections, I remember the 
Christmas dark of the moon to be pronounced the best 
time for sowing wheat: I suspect my northern friends 
could not have justified their practice by sufficient reasons; 
but the experimentalist has nothing to do with reasons a 
pi'iori ; he has only to diversify his trials, and to report 
results. 

I should be happy to see an intelligent agriculturist, 
when preparing a field of wheat, regulating the great mass 
of his practice by the common and safe rules, but dedicating 
one ridge to a variety of experiments suggested by his own 
good sense : — the expence would be nothing ; the requisite 
attention from himself in many cases an acquisition ; the 
scanty produce of his diversified ridge might be used in 
domestic consumption, so as not to create any mixture in 
the main body of his crop, whether intended for sale 
or seed. 

Of all the grains we cultivate, wheat is the slowest in 
growth ; whence, in order to bring its crop to maturity in 
an early season, in our languid climate, we are obliged to 
borrow from the preceding year, and sow late in autumn, 
and have thus a considerable period in which we may try 
experiments. 

Oats, too, may be sown in the preceding year, and the 
speculation is plausible : — I have tried it more than once; 
the appearance was promising, but the birds, very nume- 
rous in this country, devoured my crop as soon as it co- 
loured. Whoever wishes to try this experiment, should 
select the slowest growing variety of oats ; and 1 recom^ 



15 



mend for trial that species which produces its grain on 
one side hke a feather : it is very late in ripening, likes 
a strong- cold clay, and never shakes with wind. 

The oat tribe seems more diversified than any other spe- 
cies of our grain, and, as it forms an important part of the 
food of the lower orders in many parts of the United King- 
dom, well deserves the attention of the agricultural school. 

A vegetable remains, probably of more value to man, 
than any other with which he has yet formed an acquaint- 
ance — I mean the potato : — the use of this excellent 
root is more extended than that of any other plant we cul- 
tivate : lor, it not only affords a pleasant and nourishing 
food to man, and in treble the quantity he can obtain from 
any other vegetable he cultivates on the same area, but is 
equally well adapted to the sustenance of every domestic 
animal we keep, either for our own food, or for labour. 

The field too, in which the potato may be cultivated, is 
more widely extended than that we deem adapted to our 
other favourite vegetables : every soil suits it, and we see 
it ascend to very considerable elevations, and we find it 
productive on our very wettest bogs, when sufficiently 
drained. 

To the agriculturist y the potato is of the utmost con- 
sequence; for it is a meHorating crop, renovating and re- 
freshing his exhausted ground, and effectually preparing it 
for whatever other crops he chooses it to be succeeded by. 

To the naturalist y the potato is a curious subject for 
his attention. This vegetable has two distinct modes of 
propagation, by the root and by the seed: the former gives 
us an abundant crop of excellent food, while the latter, 
like the stones and seeds of our fruit-trees, gives us 
varieties, sometimes new, which never had been noticed 
before. 



16 



When we look to the potato, with respect to political 
economy, it will probably be found of more importance 
than in any other point of view I have considered it ; for, 
as this root is good food, both for man and his domestic 
animals, it is plain, that by speculating on it steadily, and 
more extensively as a food for the latter, we secure a 
resource for ourselves on a failure of our grain crops. 

The most valuable property of the potato, is probably 
the facility of its culture on coarse grounds, hitherto un- 
touched by man, which are thus brought within the agri- 
cultural pale, and in perfect preparation for other crops. 
How many hundred, I might say thousand acres, of scrogg, 
have vanished from the face of my country in my own 
time ; by scrogg, I mean tracts covered with stunted 
bushes, marks of ancient woods, once occupying these 
grounds, which have never since been broken up. The 
labour of preparing such stubborn soils for grain crops, 
would be very severe, and the return intolerably slow ; 
but the labour expended in May, and even June, in the 
culture of the potato on these wilds, is abundantly repaid 
in November. 

Barren peaty heaths and mountain skirts are rapidly 
vanishing before the spade of the potato-grower, yield- 
ing him most valuable crops of the food he is chiefly sus- 
tained by. Deprive us of the potato, and see what a 
tedious and expensive process would be required to 
prepare the same ground for any farinaceous crop. 

The consequence of the potato, in a national point of 
view, now appears ; it is the grand instrument for the fur- 
ther improvement of our islands. Ireland shows, that 
by the aid of the potato, the spade of the peasant out- 
strips the efforts of wealth, and advances tillage to scenes 
which the powers of man could not have reached without 
the aid of this valuable root. The plough, we are told^ 



17 



has not yet touched one half of the Enghsh area : with the 
potato for its precursor, how rapidly would the plough 
follow ? 

I have dwelled so long upon the excellencies of this ac- 
commodating vegetable, that I shall not enter upon the 
question, to which the study of its natural history^ 
habits, and properties, must give rise, in the distri- 
bution of the departments of the agricultural science 
I have made ; — the theorist and experimentalist must adjust 
these between themselves, having the double task before 
them, of making us better acquainted with the varieties 
of the potato we already possess, and also of discovering 
to us the new varieties of this vegetable, which nature has 
yet in store for us, to reward our industry and sagacity. 

I have often complained that the agricultural science 
was left almost exclusively in the hands of PRACTICAL 
FARMERS and AGRICULTURAL BOOKMAKERS. 

I now speculate upon the assistance and co-operation 
of a very different description of persons, whose zeal I hope 
to animate, and whose force I shall labour to concentrate, 
in pursuit of a favourite object, the improvement of this 
useful and necessary science. 

In every part of the United Kingdom, I see AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETIES formed, and in these the respectability 
of the contiguous country collected: we have thus every 
where assemblages formed of the friends of agriculture, 
and the well-wishers to its improvement ;— talents, wealth, 
zeal, and liberality, are embodied, for the avowed, and 
sole purpose of benefiting their country, by the advance- 
ment and improvement of this useful and necessary science 
or art, in which soever light we choose to consider it. 

I am proud of having my name enrolled on the lists of 
many of those respectable societies ; I look up to these 
c 



18 



incorporated amateurs as the source from which the per- 
fection of this favourite object is to be derived ; and I hope 
to be forgiven by them, for complaining, that notwith- 
standing their activity and good sense, the most eflectual 
means have not yet been adopted of attaining their ends. 

Instead of availing themselves of the talents which I 
know them to possess, and calling forth their own energies; 
they employ themselves in rousmg those of others, and 
throw the whole business on a description of persons far 
worse qualified : they endeavour, by honorary and pecu- 
niary rewards, to stimulate the practical farmers to make 
the experiments, and to decide the delicate questions upon 
which agricultural success depends. 

They call upon indocile and prejudiced persons, who 
have each of them probably already formed their opinions 
upon these questions, and whose object will be to establish 
what they have already decided upon. 

Let agricultural societies rely upon themselves and act 
for themselves, — I may be told they are tumultuary assem- 
blages, incapable of acting, and of necessity must employ 
others ; let them look to another tumultuary assembly, THE 
House of Commoms, and they a^411 see the great mass of 
business of a mighty nation, transacted in the most com- 
plete manner by themselves ; they will see their committees 
encounter the most intricate and delicate questions, with 
acuteness and perseverance, and deciding them in the most 
satisfactory manner. 

The science of agriculture is of immense extent, beyond 
the powers of any individual, or even any body of men, 
to make themselves masters of the 2f;AoZe together : it must 
be divided into departments, before it can be encountered 
with any hopes of success. 

Let me then suggest to the respectable societies already 
incorporated, to form each of them committees of arrange- 



19 



iii£tit: whose office it shall be to distribute the great mass 
of the science into manageable parts or departments, and 
to assign to distinct committees, their separate portions of 
tjje great business before them. 

The grand object of agricultural socie^ties, and their 
committees, should be to investigate the natural history of 
the vegetables we cultivate, that we maybecome acquainted 
with their habits and periods, that we may apply the 
culture most likely to bring them to the highest state of 
perfection they are capable of attaining. 

The varieties of each species, with their properties, 
the soils they affect most, their comparative advantages 
and defects, form most important subjects of inquiry ; even 
the most cursory view will shew here is a source of full 
employment for many committees. 

The reports of these committees when re-considered, and 
perhaps abridged, will compose a code containing a mass 
of information very different from what is now found in 
the numerous volumes of agricultural bookmakers, compi- 
ling from their predecessors, and from each other, with the 
sole view of forming a vendible book. 

Another most important object, and well worth the at- 
tention of those respectable societies, formed with the 
hopes of benefiting their immediate countries, and of 
course mankind in general, is the inquiry — Can we add to 
the stock of vegetables we already cultivate, any others, 
likely to add to our own comforts, or to increase the fa- 
cility of sustaining our domestic animals ? 

Of the great variety of vegetables we now cultivate, not 
a single one is a native of our own climate ; the introduc- 
tion of some is recent, as the mangel ivurzeh The turnip 
is not of a century standing ; and it is owing to this root 
that Norfolk boasts she now produces more food for man 



20 



than is grown on an equal area in any other part of 
England. 

The potato is known but for two centuries, and little 
cultivated in England for more than one. The introduc- 
tion of this valuable exotic into Scotland is still later; 
and the beneficial effects it rapidly produced, are well 
authenticated in the report of the proceedings of the Agri- 
cultural Society of the Stewartry of Kircudbright, 
presented to me when I had the honour of being elected a 
member of that respectable society. Mr. Maxwell of 
Manches, a venerable gentleman of that country, born 
in the year 1720, had been requested to report, so far as 
his remembrance went, the state of agriculture in the 
Stewartry of Kircudbright in his early days : the whole of 
his report is very interesting ; I shall take the liberty of 
transcribing the passage, where he mentions the introduc- 
tion of the potato. 

It is not proper for me here to narrate the distresses 
and poverty that were felt in the country in these times, 
which continued till about the year 1735: — in 1725, po- 
tatoes were first introduced into this Stewartry by WiL- 
" LI AM Heyland, from Ireland, ; who carried 'them on 
" horses' backs to Edinburgh, where he sold them by 
" pounds and ounces ; — during these times, when potatoes 
" were not generally raised in this country, there was for 
the most part a great scarcity of food, bordering on 
" famine ; for in the Stewartry of Kircudbright and County 
" of Dumfries, there was not as much victual produced, 
" as was necessary for supplying the inhabitants," 

That the spontaneous produce of the earth affords but 
scanty nourishment to man, at least in our climates, is 
obvious ; nor would the cultivation of our indigenous vege- 
tables add much to our stock of food : the early inhabitants 



21 



of our earth were thinly scattered over a widely extended 
surface, and poorly fed : 

" Quippe aliter tunc, orhe novo, ccelocjue recenti 
" Vivebant homines." 

And we ought not to reject as fiction what the poet tells 
us of our ancestors living on " glandes et arbutaj' when 
we see the miserable state in respect of food, in which 
savages are often found. 

The ingenuity of man, and his intercourse with his 
brethren in difterent chmates, have discovered and com- 
municated new sources of nourishment, which had long 
escaped notice; and when Humboldt saw the natives of 
the Teneriffe Islands making bread of fern root, he ex- 
claims : How little does the Jinest climate and most fertile 
soil defend the lower classes of mankind from the most 
wretched jwverty /" 

With a redundance of food for centuries, our popula- 
tion has increased to an enormous amount, and notwith- 
standing- the new sources, so numerous and various, — our 
supply of provisions sometimes falls short of the demand 
for consumption, and we occasionally feel those scarcitieSy 
I might almost say famines y to which our early ancestors 
were more accustomed. 

" Cum glandes et arhuta, sacrcs 

" Deficereyit sylvce, victumque dodenu negarat." 

An history of the successive additions that have been 
made in many centuries to the vegetables upon which the 
human species and its domestic animals are maintained, 
would be curious and amusing ; and the contrast between 
our present modes of sustenance, and that to which the 



22 



early inhabitants of these countries was limited, would be 
most striking. 

This is not idle talk ; it leads us to inquire if the resources 
of nature, although so heavily drawn upon, be entirely ex- 
hausted ; and if she has any thing left in store to reward 
the ingenuity and sagacity of man. 

Could an intelligent committee have a more important 
department consigned to them than such inquiry? — At 
present it is no man's business ; but the moment it becomes 
a duty, active individuals will discover on what food the 
inhabitants of other climates are maintained: something 
new will often come out, to which it is a part of their 
office to give a fair trial. 

Accident often I admit gives rise to the most important 
discoveries; but should, at present, accident bring into the 
way of any man a new and promising vegetable, where is 
he to bring his discovery I — Is it to the practical farmer, 
proud of what he already possesses, and vain of his skill 
in the management of it ? His maxim is : 

Quod sapio satis est mihi, non ego ciiro." 

" I am for none of your novelties.*' 

Had such a committee as I suggest existed, would a 
deaf ear have been turned to Dr. Letsom? and would 
mangel wurzel have been thirty years making its way into 
the farms of practical agriculturists 1 Even supposing the 
latter to be less opinionated, and the members of the agri- 
cultural societies less enlightened than I assume, and be- 
lieve them to be ; the question of the introduction of a new 
vegetable would come before these separate tribunals, 
under very different circumstances. The practical farmer 
would commence with doubts, and before he proceeded 



23 



would weigh the degrees of probability ; while the com- 
mittee, whose object it was to increase our stock of vege- 
tables, would deem simple possibility a sufficient ground to 
proceed upon. 

If such a committee was established, many contributions 
would be made to it : whoever met with, in other countries, 
a promising vegetable, would be sure to see it get a fair 
trial at home. 

I should be happy to see a committee also appointed to 
study our indigenous vegetables. I suspect they would 
afford us more resources than we are aware of ; I know 
not whether attention has ever been paid to the comparative 
values of our indigenous and foreign clovers. 

I may say the same of the vetch tribe, for my late period 
of mowing gives some spontaneous vetches time to acquire 
a great and valuable luxuriance. 

Another measure remains, which I earnestly recom- 
mend to all agricultural societies to adopt : that is, to take 
into their own hands a small piece of ground, to be used 
in trying the several experiments, which their com- 
mittees will find it desirable to make ; — it is by experiments 
alone that valuable and useful information will be received. 
Ocular demonstration, too, may perhaps subdue prejudice, 
and stagger incredulitj . 

I have little doubt that two acres might be sufficient to 
answer every purpose ; but as agricultural societies are 
always liberal, and generally wealthy, I think it probable, 
that it may be desirable to extend the scale a little, as our 
experimental field will not only instruct, but will also 
afford great amusement to the members, and probably 
seduce them into a more skilful, as well as a more zealous 
pursuit of the science. 



24 



The grand committee of arrangement will state the 
several questions, on the decision of which, light may be 
thrown by experiment, and will assign them to subordinate 
committees. I shall not presume to anticipate any of 
them; but supposing a ridge of many small divisions, 
or compartments, to be assigned to the several varieties of 
the oat tribe ; another to wheat, for the purpose of trying 
the efficacy of the several specifics that have been recom- 
mended, as preventives of the disorders to which that most 
important grain is subject, and by which its value is so 
often diminished ; — let me suppose another ridge consigned 
to the untried vegetables of other climes, upon which man 
or his domestic animals are sustained in their native coun- 
tries; another to the indigenous vegetables of our own, 
which hold out the most distant probability, or even pos- 
sibility of repaying the expense of culture, or of being im- 
proved by it into value. What a mixture of instruction 
and amusement, would a walk in such a field give to agri- 
cultural amateurs ? Their interest in the pursuit would be 
increased ; they would become in some sort experimen- 
talists themselves ; and their suggestions would, no doubt, 
be attended to and deserve a fair trial. 



PART II. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Having executed the first part of my 
promise, and considered Agriculture in a ge- 
neral, and in some sort in a scientific point 
of view, I shall now proceed to the remaining 
parts of my engagement, and describe the 
different fields upon which, with a view to their 
improvement, I propose to employ the in- 
dustrious and unoccupied poor, whose present 
situation has so properly excited the attention 
of the Board of Agriculture. 

The theatre upon which the labour and in- 
genuity of man may be exerted in the agri- 
cultural line, I consider as of two descriptions : 
The former, that which he has already broken 
up, and from w^hich, by the due course of 



26 



INTRODUCTION. 



tillage, he extracts food for himself and his 

domestic animals. 

The second description is that which still 
remains in its natural state, though in the 
possession of man, and, without any labour 
on his part, yields him some produce for his 
cattle, far short indeed in value to that which 
he is used to obtain, by breaking the surface, 
and expending his labour and seed. 

This description also includes other tracts, 
at present, either nearly or totally unproduc- 
tive. 

The vegetables also by which his own wants 
and those of his domestic animals are supplied, 
are likewise of two descriptions : — the one, 
natives of more genial climes, which imported 
into our own, and long fostered w^ith unre- 
mitted care, have afforded us so superior 
a supply, as to remove all necessity of culti- 
vating our indigenous vegetables, not one of 
which is deemed worth the notice of the agri- 
culturist. 

The second description of vegetables, in- 



INTRODUCTION. 



27 



eludes those which are natives of our own 
country, and indigenous to our soil, being 
the stock with which nature originally fa^ 
voured us, as most suitable to our climate. 

To the latter description of soil, and to the 
latter class of vegetables, I propose to limit 
myself ; — satisfied that if I find abundant em- 
ployment for the industrious and imoccupied 
poor, THE Board of Agriculture will 
not be displeased to find that it is to be on 
hitherto untouched ground ; and that they 
will be gratified when they see the exertions 
they have taken such pains to call out, are 
to be expended in giving some value to 
grounds that never had any before, and in 
improving the produce of others, that had 
hitherto been but scanty. Nor, should these 
ends be answered, will the Board complain, 
when they find that the vegetables I mean 
to throw into greater luxuriance, are not de- 
scended from a foregn breed, but the indige- 
mus, aboriginal occupants of our soil. 

I do not mean, in any instance, to adopt 



28 



INTRODUCTION. 



the common usage of tilling the soil, or 
breaking the surface, for the extermination of 
the plants in actual possession — nor shall I 
attempt to force Nature to throw up the 
crops I wish for, by obtruding their seed upon 
her, hoping to carry the same point by kind- 
ness and accommodation, by adapting the 
soil to the habits and likings of the vegetables 
I wish for, and thus tempting them to choose 
it, and settle on it. 

The untouched domains of Nature, to which 
I propose to call attention, are detailed in the 
following eight chapters. 



CONTENTS. 



GRASSY MOUNTAINS. 



These are to be made more valuable in three ways, to 
each of which a distinct chapter is assigned. 

CHAP. I. 

First f By making them produce winter food for all the 
cattle that graze upon them in summer. 

CHAP. II. 

Secondly, By making them habitable by man, and eo' 
Ionizing them with industriovs manufacturers, 

CHAP. III. 

Thirdly, By improving their grassy sole, so as to make 
them yield more, and a better description of pasture, more 
grateful to the cattle that graze upon them, more nutritive, 
and more fattening. 

CHAP. IV. 
HEATHY MOUNTAINS. 

These, under favourable circumstances, which are most 
abundant, 1 hope to make produce tolerable green pasture, * 
in place of the useless heath now covering them. 



30 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. V. 

NAKED SANDS. 

These too I hope, in many instances, to clothe with a 
green sole, productive of some p>asture, substituting a 
pleasant verdure in the place of deformity and barrenness, 

CHAP. VI. 

UNTOUCHED SURFACES IN ENGLAND, 

A description rather scarce in that highly improved 
country. 

CHAP. VII. 

UNTOUCHED PEAT MOSS AND MOOR 
UPPER SURFACE. 

This extensive description I hope in many cases to 
improve considerably ; but I confess my expectations fall 
very short of what I have often seen promised on the 
subject, 

CHAP. VIII. 
CUT OUT MOSS UNDER SURFACE. 

This disgusting and useless description of ground, I 
engage in almost every instance to make produce crops 
more valuable than what now groics upon our best and 
most highly manured meadows. 



CHAP. I. 



GRASSY MOUNTAINS. 



Hitherto, while the grand elevations by which our 
surface is so much diversified, formed the subject of my 
inquiries ; I considered mountains merely in a geological 
point of view, and hazarded my conjectures upon the ope- 
rations of nature, by which they had acquired their present 
forms. 

I shall now cease to look back to original formation ; but, 
taking a prospective view of the subject, I shall inquire — 
How these widely-extended tracts can be made more useful 
to man, and more productive to his domestic animals ; — 
whether the scanty food these wilds now afford to them at 
the best season, can be increased \ — whether these same 
mountains can produce, in themselves, storeable provisions 
to sustain their four-footed inhabitants in winter, while the 
powers of Nature seem torpid, and vegetation completely 
at a stand in these dreary regions. 

It is here natural to ask — Have I discovered or im- 
ported any new vegetables, which yield greater produce in 
bleak elevations than their native plants are able to do? 
Have I discovered any new culture by which the plants 
we foster will be thrown into greater luxuriance, than 
under those we have hitherto adopted I No. — I shall avail 
myself of no other plants (that is, grasses) than those with 



32 



which Nature has ah'eady clothed the surface of our moun- 
tains ; and instead of introducing a new mode of culture, 
I shall not adopt any, nor break up in any instance the 
grassy sole I find ready formed. 

A watchful attention to Nature herself, and to the habits 
of the spontaneous vegetables which she is perpetually 
obtruding on us, will enable us to apply the measures that 
will call into more vigorous action those whose produce is 
valuable, and to repress the plants which are useless, and 
of course injurious, by pressing on, and crowding those 
(the more kindly grasses) which, if at liberty, would luxu- 
riate into higher value. 

I shall generalize no longer, but proceed to the field of 
action, mountain ; a description widely extended over 
many parts of our British islands ; so widely, that a 
facility of addmg in any degree to the improvement of these 
tracts, would add materially to the wealth and prosperity 
of the British empire. 

I may be told, this is not a time for engaging in specu- 
lations, — that the present distress pervades all ranks of 
society, — that the great mountain proprietors have suffered 
as severely as any other class, and are at this moment 
little able to raise the funds necessary for carrying on ex- 
tensive improvement. 

I rely, that the most important of the improvements I 
propose to commence with, are not extensive ; for, widely 
spread as a mountain grazing farm may be, it is but upon 
a very small part of it I mean to act ; — a park or meadow, 
of a very few acres, will be sufficient to supply a very large 
mountain farm ; and the cost of effectually inclosing such 
small area, will amount to full two thirds of the whole 
expense to be incurred. 

The Board of Agriculture give a full answer to 
this objection, and, by proposing their premiums, show it 



33 



to be ikeir opinion, that this is the most favourable 
moment chosen, for engaging- in such improvements ; 
CAPITAL is not required, and whatever is to be expended 
will be laid out in manual labour alone ; und at this very 
moment we see great landed proprietors and other public- 
spirited gentlemen, as well as that honourable Board, ex- 
erting themselves to create employment for the industrious 
but distressed labourers and manufacturers, at present 
thrown out of work. 

How then could such unfortunate and suffering people 
be better relieved, than by applying their labour to the 
permanent improvement of the country, by engaging them, 
by contract or daily labour, in the formation of those en- 
closures I shall mention, and in the execution of the other 
more diminutive works I shall point out. 

Our Grassy Mountains , are chiefly employed as 
pasture, and in that view alone I shall at present consider 
them ;— stocked with many flocks and herds through the 
summer, not one of which they are able to sustain through 
the winter, or even should a few starvelings be left, half of 
them perish from cold and want of food. 

Hence the winter sustenance of the mountain stock 
must be sought for elsewhere than at home, or they must 
be disposed of at low rates, to the inhabitants of milder 
regions, who contrive means of sustaining them. Thus 
it appears, the great desideratum in mountain pastures is 
winter food for their cattle. — Teach their occupants to 
raise provender within themselves, and so to maintain their 
stock at home, through the winter, and you increase their 
profits, and of course the value of mountain lands, tenfold. 

This is my present object ; and I hope to show that this 
important point may be carried at light expense, and in a 
short time, that is, in the very first year in which the 
necessary operations are commenced early, and with spirit. 

D 



34 



I had long observed, that great elevations did not 

repress the luxuriance of some grasses ; and a few years 
ago, I persuaded my noble friend the Marquis of Hert- 
ford, to make the experiment on a scale of se\en acies, 
on his own mountains, at an elevation o^nine hundred feet ; 
and the success was complete. My worthy friend SiR 
Charles Ross laboured to seduce me to Rosshire, and 
probably would have succeeded, had not our speculations 
been stopped by his untimely and much-lamented death. 

Further observations smoothed the difficulties in the 
way of mountain meadows, so as to reduce them nearly to 
nothing. I now discovered that our agrostis stolonifera 
formed a component part in all elevated green soles, and 
that its proportion to the other grasses with which nature 
mixed it, increased as the elevation became greater, and 
the severities they had to sustain more weighty. 

I had previously discovered, that even in low ground, 
where circumstances were favourable, (that is, where, by 
the nature of the soil, some difficulties were thrown 
in the way of spontaneous common grasses,) that by severe 
weeding, draining, top-dressing, and late mowing, I could 
convert the natural mixed sole, without breaking the 
surface, into pure florin meadow, of great value and per- 
manent continuance. 

I did not venture to bring forward the hardy paradox, 
until my friends Sir J. Stewart of Coltness, Sir A. 
Mackenzie, and Colomel Lockhart, member for Sel- 
kirkshire, transmitted to me a document, well authenticated, 
establishing the existence of a portion of pure florin 
meadow of great value, though quite spontaneous, in Co- 
lonel Lockhart's plantations; small indeed, but sufficient to 
prove, that under circumstances, florin could of itself take 
possessioij of the surface ; nor was Colonel Lockhart's a 
solitary instance that reached me. 



35 



Determined now both to establish the truth of this 
position, by irresistible evidence, and also to show its 
easy application to use ; — in February, 1815, I requested 
my noble friends the Earls of Caledon and Gosford, 
to inspect a poor coarse piece of ground never broken up, 
promising their Lordships, that if they would be so good 
as to call again late in October, they should see the same 
ground, (48 English perches) covered with a crop of 
hay of superior quality, and double the quantity of any other 
crop grown in Ireland that season ; without breaking the 
surface, sowing or planting florin, or performing any other 
operation than surface draining, weeding , and top dressing. 

My two noble friends, and many other persons of respec- 
tability, attended in February 1815; and, fully satisfied of the 
wretchedness of the 48 perches I laid off before them, 
were much amused at my promise of producing a double 
crop on that same portion within the year. 

The two Earls attended again in November, each ac- 
companied by friends ; and I observed them impressing on 
these strangers, the poor state in which they had viewed 
this ground in the preceding February, but now covered 
by a crop (different parts of which were mowed before 
them,) that their Lordships authorized me to say, seemed 
treble the amount of those they were used to see cut. The 
crop of 1816 yielded above thirty tons green sward to the 
English acre, and now (June 1817,) the third crop seems to 
promise better than either of the preceding. 

Having thus established the power of changing a spon- 
taneous grassy surface, into most luxuriant florin meadow, 
at little expense, first by experiment on a small scale, 
and afterwards with much pubhcity on a far more ex- 
tended one ; and then having carried this new measure 
into actual practice with complete success, I shall recur 
again to the principles upon which it depends ; point out 



36 



the grounds fittest for the purpose, and then proceed to 
give such instructions as I conceive will be useful. 

The measure of changing a natural, mixed, grassy sole, 
into a pure florin sole, is founded on the assumption, that 
in every grassy surface, undisturbed for three or four 
years, there is a mixture of agrostis stolonifera ; and I 
have invariably found the quantity of this agrostis, propor- 
tioned to the difficulties it had to encounter. At Porta- 
down, General Carr and I found, that after seven 
months submersion, the emerging verdant sole was pure 
florin : a hard gravelly bottom precluded the aquatics^ 
and other grasses would have been drowned. 

I showed Earl O'Neil, that the sole of an old turn- 
pike road (now shut up) was pure florin, and offered to 
throw it instantly into a rich crop. 

Walking afterwards with his Lordship in a weak moory 
part of his estate early in August, we observed a tenant 
mowing a poor spritty meadow; I told his Lordship he 
was cutting it quite too early. 

I went over the ditch, and having examined it, called his 
Lordship and showed him great abundance of young florin 
stolones running among the sprit : his Lordship persuaded 
his tenant to listen to my advice, and abstain from mowing 
for a long time. 

Some weeks afterwards his Lordship informed me, that 
his tenant had been obliged to cut his meadow, which had 
improved far beyond his expectations ; and I have no 
doubt, had he abstained some weeks longer, his meadow 
would have more than double the quantity it had produced 
when I stopped_him. 

It is in the harshest parts of low regions alone, that we 
can expect to succeed in converting a mixed sole into a 
pure florin one ; should we select a rich, or even a mode- 
rately rich surface, in a low country, however well stocked 



37 



by nature with the true agrostis, the rush of intruders 
would be such, that no efforts in weeding would secure the 
exclusive possession to our favourite. 

Why then do I boast of having succeeded in my own 
low country ? Because I used policy : I selected ungenial 
spots, long loaded with undischarged water, become acrid 
about the roots of the plants growing on it ; poor and 
stunted ; florin as well as the rest. I first changed the 
nature of the ground by severe surface drainage, and en- 
riched it by top-dressings. The paltry aquatics in posses- 
sion derived no benefit from the change ; Nature had not 
adapted them to such a soil; while the amphibious florin, 
finding itself in its own favourite soil, instantly rushed into 
luxuriance, smothering its rivals by the mass of its stolones; 
—nor this without a struggle, calling for my interference, 
as some of the old possessors, like florin, reconciled to 
the change, started up into vigour requiring occasional 
extirpation. 

The management of spontaneous elevated soles requires 
no policy. Fiorin, as I have often proved by respectable 
testimony, conflrmed by my ovm ten years' experience, 
luxuriates equally at the top of the mountain and bottom 
of the valley. — Not so the rivals it has to contend with in 
lower regions. Every one of these shrinks from, or 
pines under the severities of an alpine climate ; and should I 
be called upon to except sprit and rush, — I reply that these 
coarse intruders soon disappear under drainage and top- 
dressing ; nor need the mountain-meadow maker take the 
trouble of inquiring which of the portions he is able to 
select, is best stocked with fiorin by Nature; he may rely 
upon it, there is not a spot in which he will not find abun- 
dance before him. 

There are indeed other circumstances of importance to 
be attended to ; the roots of fiorin penetrate a very short 



38 



way into the ground ; whence we might infer, that this 
grass would agree with a very shallow soil: — by no means; 
on the contrary, I never found it permanently luxuriant, 
except in very deep soil. My worthy friend the late 
Bishop of Llandaff, with his usual ingenuity, dis- 
covered the cause; — an important secret which agriculture, 
in all its branches, owes to that venerable prelate. His 
Lordship told me, that there was a perspiration from the 
earth highly favourable and encouraging to vegetation ; 
weak where the soil was shallow, but powerful where it 
was deep ; and these positions the Bishop confirmed to me 
by the most conclusive experiments. 

Our field is ample ; mountain grazing farms are widely 
extended ; and as a very few acres of meadow will suffice 
for all the cattle in winter, that were maintained on it in 
summer, we have great room for selection, and in the 
variety of surface shall surely find a sufficient area fa- 
vourable to our purpose ; nor am I hard to please. Much 
of the green mountains I have traversed, are of the fol- 
lowing description — peaty soil, from nine to fifteen inches 
deep, fibre decomposed. 

This is a very good description, especially if the sub- 
stratum be clayey, so as, when reached by the drains, to 
afford a material that will improve the peaty compost ; 
should the peat be graduating into moor, and either by 
decay or mixture with earth be unfit for fuel, I consider 
this soil as still better. 

Where there is not peat, alluvial clay or earth is very 
favourable ; and where the ground is spouty, generally 
sufficiently deep, a point to be carefully attended to ; and 
in general I would choose wet marshy ground, for the 
drainage is cheap, and most productive of soil for compost, 
when drains are frequent. 

Where the peaty soil is fibrous, we generally feid it 



39 



covered with heath ; but even were the surface grassy, I 
do not like to encounter a fibrous soil; nor have we any 
necessity for engaging in difficulties, for few mountain 
grazing farms will occur, in which suitable sites for 
meadows will not be found, in far greater abundance than 
can be required. 

Many, no doubt, will start at the thought of finding 
luxuriant meadows at great elevations ; I have already 
touched on this subject, and shall add a few words for the 
encouragement of timid gentlemen. 

In my geological pursuits, I have for many years been 
in the habit of ascending every mountain I came near ; 
and from the time I discovered florin, I have always looked 
for it wherever I went ; and affirm, that on every mountain 
I went up, I found florin more abundant the higher I 
ascended ; and at the summits of the two highest, Bessy 
Bell and Knock laid, I found no other grass. 

My friend the Earl of Selkirk, on his return from a 
visit to me, was to pass near Knocklaid, and intended 
to go to its summit; I requested his Lordship when 
there to look for florin ; — he wrote to me, that he had found 
it in abundance at the very top, and carried some roots 
home with him. 

At the request of the Irish Farmimg Society, I 
went to the summit of the ridge above Dublin, separating 
that county from Wicklow ; I was accompanied by some 
members of the Society: — as we ascended, we found spon- 
taneous florin every where, but, to our surprize, more vi- 
gorous as we approached the summit. I pointed out this 
curious fact to the gentlemen who accompanied me, and 
who entirely agreed with me in my mode of accounting 
for it ; which was, that in the lower regions, florin had 
rivals to contend with; but these, unable to bear the se- 
verities of great elevation, could not exist beyond a certain 



40 



altitude, above which, florin unincumbered with rivals 
became, when in exclusive possession, more vigorous. 

What then is the object of this part of my memoir ? Is 
it not to induce the proprietors of mountain districts, in the 
most favourable parts of these regions, by dramage, ma- 
nure, and protection, to encourage the growth of a vege- 
table, which we have demonstration will thrive and luxu- 
riate in the bleakest parts of the same regions, without 
any one of these aids ? 

But however well florin might sustain the harshness of 
the mountain tops, it can never be desirable that our 
meadows should approach them ; for when I talked of 
great elevations, Mr. Critchley, who at the request of 
the Farming Society attended me in the tour I made 
through the Wicklow Mountains by their desire, showed 
me, that from convenience, our meadows must always 
approach the inhabited country, and be near to the dwell- 
ings of the herds who were to attend to the feeding of the 
cattle in winter, and distributing their stored provisions 
with care and prudence. 

The measures I recommend for raising crops of excel- 
lent hay through all mountain tracts are little expensive, 
as will appear by my detail of the whole of them : eff*ec- 
tual protectionis necessary, consequently strong inclosures ; 
and these constitute the principal part of the expense. 

Nor will there be any delay in the execution, if set 
about with spirit ; crops will rapidly follow, and the interval 
between commencing the work, and mowing the produce, 
will not extend to one full year. The Earl of Caledon's 
patch, as he calls it, was begun late in February, 1815, 
and yielded its great crop that same season. On the 14th 
of May, I began to lay down an acre for my friend Mr. 
Baird, at Shotts, in Scotland, and that same season he 
mowed a better crop than had ever been cut in the countrj'. 



41 



The progress of the improvement I suggest, if exten- 
sively adopted, would not be gradual ; for should incredu- 
lity be suppressed, and a confidence in me substituted in 
its place, and acted upon, the change in the value of 
the mountains in the British islands would be instantaneous. 

Bacon tells us, that man and Nature execute their opera- 
tions very difterently. Man commences with parts, 
finishes one, and then 'proceeds to another, and so on till 
the whole be completed. Nature, on the contrary, com- 
mences with the whole, advances all the parts uniformly, 
finishing- none, until the whole be completed. 

Hence, it appears, that should I be seconded as I wish, 
the promise I made to some of my Scotch friends would 
be performed ; and every mountain grazing- farm, from 
Caithness to Dumbarton, enabled to sustain through 
the winter the whole stock that had grazed upon it in 
summer. 

Having stated the principles upon which the conversion 
of a green sole of grass into valuable meadow depend ; 
having detailed generally the measures to be adopted ; and 
having by various and most respectable testimonies esta- 
blished the success that has attended them on diff'erent 
occasions, I shall proceed to the immediate object of the 
Board of Agriculture, and show how extensively the 
industrious and unoccupied poor may be employed in car- 
rying these measures into execution. 

In the selection of the ground to be converted into mea- 
dow, depth of soil is an important consideration ; I wish it 
not to be less than twelve^ or at least ten inches deep ; to a 
peaty soil I have no objection, provided it be not fibrous 
and spongy. 

The only operation we have to perform on the area 
chosen, is to reheve it effectually from all under water,^ 
and to enrich the surface by good top-dressings. 



42 



The former point we carry by frequent open drains, pa- 
rallel to each otlier ; their distance governed by the nature 
of the ground ; if the subsoil be retentive, they should be 
the more frequent and deeper, not less than fifteen inches, 
and in the form of an equilateral^ or perhaps a right-angled 
triangle, that they may not be easily choaked up ; and 
also that they may be readily cleared when necessary i 
the stuff raised in the formation of these drains is to be 
thrown into tall heaps, their distance from each other 
governed by the pov/er of the labourer in pitching. 

For top-dressings, our resources are most abundant ; the 
heaps I mention are upon the spot, and when improved, 
only require to be thrown by the shovel on the contiguous 
surface. 

Our sources for this improvement are two, lime and 
4ishes: — the former may be deemed expensive; but as this 
manure is created entirely by manual labour, whether we 
look to the quarrying, the burning, or to the raising of the 
fuel; making lime and finding uses for it may be consi- 
dered in some sort as forming part of the object of the 
Board of Agriculture, finding employment for the indus- 
trious and unoccupied. 

Should the objection be still pressed, I reply, that the 
very smallest quantity will be of value to me ; and should 
that be refused me, I can do very well without the article. 

Ashes form a grand and inexhaustible source of manure, 
at least for my purpose ; these are also procured by manual 
labour, for peat and moor, or peaty earth, are most abun- 
dantly disseminated through all our mountains, and easily 
converted into ashes ; whose quantity may be greatly in- 
creased by adding earth or clay to the fire, or kiln, we 
employ. 

For burning ashes, mountain is an excellent situation. 



43 



so airy that the combustion is easily excited, and the fires 
kept up even in wet weather ; the cheapness with which 
this valuable article will be furnished, is scarcely credible. 

Lime and ashes both possess a quality extremely conve- 
nient in the formation of composts, great divisibility ; and 
by this, can also be spread pure on the surface, in what- 
ever proportions we can afford, with corresponding ad- 
vantage. 

I dwell on these two descriptions of manure for several 
reasons : I know of no other that can be procured in 
quantities commensurate to the immense extent of surface 
I propose to embrace. Ashes are to be made every ichere; 
for the peat of our mountains is inexhaustible ; and Plin\' 
asks, " Quoto enini in loco non suum marmor invenitur 
I have the fullest experience of their successful application 
to the use for which I now recommend them ; — I have re- 
peatedly ascertained the extreme cheapness with which 
they, at least ashes, are procured : and they are the prin- 
cipal instruments upon which I depend, for enabling me to 
fulfil the bold promises I have made, and both procured by 
manual labour alone. 

Though they both can be administered pure, it is upon 
the composts enlivened by them I chiefly depend. 

We left the bases of these composts, the prime material 
from which they are formed, in small heaps on the edges 
of the drain we had opened; our object now is to enrich 
and to make them friable. For the latter purpose, when 
they shall have stood some time to dry and mellow, we 
throw every two contiguous heaps into onej and as we 
break and mince them small, we throw in some shovel- 
fulls of well-powdered lime, regulating the quantity by the 
facility with which it is to be procured. 

AVhen these second and larger heaps shall have stood a 



44 



reasonable time, they are again to be turned; and now 
during the operation, ashes in as great quantities as we can 
afford are to be thrown in. — Should the uiaterial raised from 
the drains be loose or peaty, the compost will very soon 
be sufficiently friable ; but should the subsoil be viscid or 
tough day, (materials I like) they will require a third 
turning ; and in this case I wish for as much lime as conve- 
nient, reluctantly dispensing with it: but in loose and 
more open materials, pure ashes, if profusely bestowed, 
will be abundantly sufficient; and with fair, good, top- 
dressings of this compost, so easily made, / engage to raise 
from Sutherland, by the skirts of Ben Nevis and Ben 
Lomond, Skiddau and Snowdon, and finally far up, on 
Dartmoor, crops of hay of superior qualitj-, and double 
the quantity of what is now raised on the best meadows in 
Midddesex, with the aid of London dung. 

As our drains are the sources of our composts, so hap- 
pily placed as to be spread on the surface ^i\\io\xt portage, 
it may be convenient to increase their size beyond what is 
immediately necessary for the discharge of the water; and 
also to make them more frequent than we should otherwise 
have done. 

Our desire of obtaining more material for our compost 
will be increased, when we find it well adapted to our pur- 
pose, deep viscid loam or clay ; — in this case, I should not 
hesitate to make the drains two or two and half feet deep 
— still equilateral triangles. 

I cannot generally pronounce on the distance between 
the parallel drains, it must depend on the depth and tena- 
city of the subsoil ; nor is parallelism essentially necessary ; 
— to discharge the water is the object, and inequahty of 
surface may make a deviation desirable. 

The frequency of my drains has been objected to, as 



45 



ijccasioning loss of surface ; important where the ground 
sets high. I reply, I gain surface ; for the stolones, by their 
propensity to run down decli^ities, soon make the sloping 
sides the best part of the meadow. 

Our material for forming compost, may also be got on 
the outside of our strong inclosure ; but this depends upon 
local circumstances. 

When we have selected our area, we should commence 
by lighting fires ; these will be kept up by the men em- 
ployed in making the drains and fencing the meadow; 
and as I never break the surface myself for the purpose of 
cultivation, I will not allow it to be broken up hy paring 
for burning. 

As the immediate object of the Board of Agriculture is 
to find employment for the industrious and unoccupied 
poor, I fear the very slight operations I require to be per- 
formed, are so trifling in themselves, and so speedily exe- 
cuted, that they will be deemed insufficient for the 
purpose, and as not aflbrding the occupation required. 

I admit, that when we compare these labours with those 
that in the common course of cultivation are expended 
on equal areas, we shall find the employment afibrded by 
these new measures to occupy much fewer hands. 

And when we compare the great profits to be derived 
from them, for which I am pledged, so far to exceed those 
usually made by similar exertions of manual labour, I fear 
I shall be deemed to have failed in my engagement of 
finding employment for the industrious and unoccupied. 

But when it shall be considered, that the exertions I 
j)ropose to call out, require not either previous preparation 
or weighty capital, and that they may be employed in an 
infinite number of places at the same time ; I expect that 
the complaints of my not finding sufficient employment for 



tKe industrious and unoccupied poor will be abandoned ; 
more especiall} when it shall be recollected, that no labour 
has as yet been expended on the grounds I select ; nor pro- 
bably ever would, had not J pointed out the measures that 
will make them valuable, by the pure exertion of manual 
labour, — the very article now so loudly called for by the 
world, and the particular object of the Board of 
Agriculture's premium. 



CHAP. 11. 

ON THE COLONIZATION OF UNINHABITED 
GRASSY MOUNTAINS. 



In the preceding Chapter on the improvement of 
Grass]/ Mountains, I limited my views solely to their 
present inhabitants, the cattle ^ that graze upon them ; 
pointing out measures by which these mountains might 
be enabled to maintain their cattle, at seasons when 
Nature is torpid in such elevated regions, and, ceasing 
to produce food for these, their sole inhabitants^ lays their 
proprietors under the necessity of either selling them, or 
removing them to other countries where food can be pro- 
cured for them. 

I shall now consider these regions in another point of 
view,- and show that by a judicious application of the same 
measures, those extensive uninhabited tracts may be 
made the seat of a numerous population, enlivened by 
Agriculture, and enriched by Manufactures, 

Before we speculate on extending our agricultural field, 
and adding to the number of our manufactures, it may be 
proper to take a short view of these two interests, the 
agricultural and the manufacturing, jointly and sepa- 



48 



rately. I live in a country where every farmer is also a 
manufacturer, and if not personally employed, yet, scarcely 
■with any exception, has manufacture in some form carried 
on in his house. Such has been our practice for more 
than a century ; and the result has been, that with the 
weakest soil, and from the most thinly inhabited part of 
Ireland, we are become by far the most populous, our 
cultivated field bears a greater proportion to our whole 
area than in other provinces, and we have carried tillage 
farther up our mountains, and reclaimed more of our bogs 
than will be observed in any part of the kingdom. 

Hence, I confess, I am prejudiced in favour of the 
usages to which I have been a witness in my own imme- 
diate country ; and in my plan for domestic colonization, 
wish to assimilate the measures to those which I see at- 
tended with complete success. 

I know it to be the habit of many wise ones, to condemn 
the union of agriculture and manufacture as injurious to 
each other, and I have often listened with impatience to 
lectures on the prudence of keeping these two arts distinct 
from each other ; for, say they, when united, neither can 
attain the perfection to which they would arrive sepa- 
rately; and I have heard the inferior style of our practical 
agriculture brought in proof of the position, that the 
union is injurious. 

1 have often taken the other side of the question, and 
admitting the agricultural produce of a given area, 
divided into small farms, to be decidedly inferior to that of 
an equal area laid out in greater farms, and more skilfully 
cultivated, yet still I have sustained, that the whole 
produce, including manufacture, afforded by the mass of 



49 



the small farms, was of more actual value than the pure 
farinaceous crops of the more knowing farmers. 

The state is decidedly on my side of the question ; for 
even were the value of the whole produce of each area only 
equal, it would be enriched by the superior number of 
inhabitants, the most important part of its wealth consisting 
in its population. 

This topic is well illustrated in a pamphlet published in 
Philadelphia during- the late war, and held in much 
estimation in England : it says—** It is admitted by most 

writers on political arithmetic, that one thousand inha- 
" bitants collected within a square league, will, when com- 
" pared with five hundred spread over the same surface, 
" sustain much more than doyble the amount of taxes, 
" and cost much less trouble and expense in collecting 
" them." And again: ** War as waged by Bonaparte is 
" not now principally a question of finance, but of the 
" resources of population. Ttie strength of a state 
" opposed to France, must be estimated by the sum of 
" its population, divided by the extent of its tenritory." 

We have been repeatedly advised to collect our manu- 
facturers into towns, and to leave the country exclusively 
to the agriculturists. We well know that we should not 
improve the morals of our people by collecting them 
together into such masses ; and recent experience proves 
that the tranquillity of the country, and even of the state, 
may be endangered by bringing numerous bodies together, 
so as to be within the grasp of factious demagogues, 
zealous to inflame them into outrage, sedition, and re- 
bellion. 

When vast numbers, especially of very young persons, 
E 



50 



are collected together into great man u factories, we well 
know their morals are corrupted, and their character 
debased ; of this we have too many proofs. Indeed, it is a 
necessary consequence of their new situation ; for, removed 
from domestic society, and the mild influence of parental 
authority, they naturally take the turn of that company 
they fall into, and the worst description generally takes 
the lead. 

The proportion of our manufacturing, to our agricultural 
and commercial population, is by far too great; and it 
might be desirable, if practicable, to reduce it : but, exclu- 
sive of the difliculty, I fear the state to which we are re- 
duced, after a tremendous contest of unparalleled duration 
and enormous expense, would not bear an alteration that 
might diminish our resources. When, therefore, I spe- 
culate on increasing or manufacturing population, I have 
no thoughts of separating it from the agricultural ; no 
thought of carrying off the children from their father's 
house, or depriving them of parental care and instruction : 
they shall continue to dwell together in patriarchal inno- 
cence. Manufactures can be found, in which the children 
have employment at their own jfire-side ; and while the 
father bears his part, or rests from the labours of his 
diminutive farm, as of old, — 

" Arguto conjux perciirrit pectine telas." 

In cottage industry, as well as in great manufactories, 
employment is found for very young children : the sisters, 
as they advance, take to their wheels ; the brothers to the 
loom ; and sometimes we see a loom in a corner occupied 
by a journeyman. Such is the picture of most small farm- 
houses in the North of Ireland : but domestic industry is 



51 



not limited to the linen manufacture, which may be over- 
stocked ; perhaps is so already by the interference of 
cotton, and abatement of demand. 

The judicious proprietor, when he speculates on co- 
lonizing- his wilds, will coolly consider what manufacture is 
best suited to his local circumstances, and likely to have a 
permanent demand. As he will not disturb his sheep or 
remove them from his mountains, his own wool holds out 
an inducement to commence with the woollen manufacture : 
nor is he limited to his own crude materials ; others may 
be found, easily imported, and to which the industry and 
ingenuity of man can give such additional value as to 
make the trade highly profitable. ' 

It remains forme to show how these speculations, so 
advantageous both to the state, and to the local proprietor, 
may be carried into effect, at a cost not beyond the reach 
of our present contracted means, and an immediate em- 
ployment found to the industrious and unoccupied poor. 

In my former Chapter, on Grassy Mountains, my object 
was limited to the provision of winter food tor their summer 
stock. I did not look forward to human inhabitants, nor 
carry my views beyond the cattle themselves now in pos- 
session ; nor was I careful as to the elevation of the small 
tracts upon which I wished to operate, leaving the pro- 
prietor to consult his own convenience, ready to attend 
him to whatever altitudes he might think fit to ascend. 
But when our object is changed, and we look to a settle- 
ment for human inhabitants, where, by their own industry, 
they may extract from the soil their own food as well as 
that of their domestic cattle, we must take care not to 
carry our colony into regions, where the powers of Nature 



52 



are inadequate to these purposes — to elevations too great 
for the production of the vegetables necessary to sustain 
our new inhabitants. 

The limitation we are now under is merely, that we 
advance upon ground not yet occupied by man ; but we 
will surely choose the mildest of the description, that is, the 
skirts of the mountains, and the most favourable vallies, 
where we can find a depth of soil suitable to our objects, 
and not encumbered with undiscl-argeable water, nor too 
deeply loaded with spongy peat moss ; a description 
abundantly scattered through all the mountains I have 
traversed, and amply sufficient for an immense number of 
inhabitants, though perhaps covering but a comparatively 
small portion of the whole area of our alpine regions, 
every where exhibiting immense tracts of shallow stony 
surface, and a still greater portion elevated above the 
zone where esculent vegetables can be cultivated. 

I may be told I am speculating on sending inhabitants 
to people our mountains, at the very time we see the 
Highlands of a neighbouring country depopulated; that 
it is probable our efforts to establish colonies, will only be 
the means of producing emigrations, similar to those we 
have lately witnessed, and which have T)een so generally 
deplored. 

Before we propose to stock uninhabited mountain tracts 
with colonists, it is necessary to inquire, how other moun- 
tain districts came to be forsaken by those who, born on 
the spot, were probably descended from the aborigines of 
the country, and yet, forgetting their attachment to the soil, 
emigrated from the habitations of their ancestors. For si- 
milar causes produce similar effects ; and less powerful ones 



63 

would induce strangers to forsake a new settlement, than 
would be sufficient to compel old residents to quit their 
native homes. 

The inhabitants of the Scotch Highlands, at least those 
who have emigrated, were all pastoral tribes; they culti- 
vated very little of their soil ; their flocks and herds 
supplied some oi' their food, and the profits of their cattle 
were the source from which their rent, their necessaries, 
their coniibrts, and any of the few redundancies they may 
have had, were supplied. 

As the population and the wealth of the nation increased, 
the prices of every thing gradually rising, these profits be- 
came greater and greater. The landlords observed this, and 
soon saw that they themselves might enjoy these profits ; 
that the cattle grazing on their mountains required very 
little attendance, and that by throwing many of these 
small grazing i'arms into one, a far higher rent might be 
obtained tor it ; or the landlord himself might stock it, 
(as was often done) and thus carry on the grazing business 
at his own suit to great advantage. 

The inhabitants thus reduced to their diminutive culti" 
vahle farms, scarcely able in an ungrateful soil to produce 
sufficient food, and totally deprived of all means of pro- 
curing other necessaries, or of making their rent, were 
soon reduced to the greatest distress. The alternative 
before them was, that they must either strike out new 
modes of raising the means of supplying themselves with 
necessaries, or they must emigrate from a country where 
they could no longer exist. 

Here then those who form plans of colonization receive 



54 



a good lesson ; they must consider not only, how their new 
inhabitants are to be supplied with food, but also what 
sources tliey have, whence other necessaries and comforts 
are to be supplied. 

The bleak countries, to which we are about to ascend, 
are not favourable to agriculture : moderate exertions 
may procure sufficient produce for domestic consumption ; 
but it is from lower and richer soils, that markets are to 
be supplied, and funds raised to reward the labour of the 
agriculturist. 

Domestic manufacture seems to me the only resource 
for our new colonists ; and the proprietor must be well 
prepared on this subject, and must have effectually se- 
cured domestic occupation for them, before he ventures to 
transplant them ; otherwise he may be certain of seeing his 
colony soon deserted. 

What this domestic occupation is to be, I leave to 
those to determine who have more knowledge in such 
matters, and who may be acquainted with the local cir- 
cumstances of the country in question. I shall content 
myself with showing how the necessaries which the soil 
can produce are to be procured. I shall not mention ftiel, 
because the regions I look to generally abound with turf ; 
and no proprietor would think of a colony, where a copious 
supply of that article of prime necessity was not under 
his command. 

I shall now assume the proprietor of a mountain dis- 
trict to be determined to establish a colony in his wilds, 
and to avail himself of his own means to induce settlers to 
repair to it. He builds for each a comfortable cottage, 



55 



with a small cow-liousc. He lays off for each a very 
small farm, and engages to give summer grazing for one, 
perhaps two cows, with some immediate assistance neces- 
sary for new settlers. Admit them to arrive ; how can 
they proceed I The new colonist cannot maintain his cow 
in the winter, for he has not hay ; he cannot till his small 
farm, for he has not manure ; — and as he cannot avail himself 
of what alone his landlord can give him, his domestic 
industry, whatever it may be, cannot reach so far as to 
supply his entire food, his other necessaries, and also to 
pay his rent— he must of course soon migrate. 

A very little attention to the preceding statement will 
show, where the progress of our alpine colony was ar- 
rested. Winter sustenance for the settlers' cows was not 
provided ; hence no source of manure. 

Hay, no doubt, is the grand desideratum in all highly 
elevated countries. The knowledge of this induced me to 
compose mv preceding Chapter, on the improvement of 
Grassy Mountains, in which I limited myself to the pro- 
duction of Hay alone ; and as I conceive I have fully es- 
tablished the facility of forming, at a trifling expense, most 
productive meadows in all parts of such mountains, I 
shall not repeat what I have said, but, merely referring to 
that Chapter, I shall at once assume the practicability of 
forming luxuriant meadows wherever we please, by the 
simple operations oi' draining, weeding, and top-dressing, 
with cheap and contiguous materials, as I have there more 
fully detailed. 

The proprietor, having now taken me into his council, 
resumes his operations ; and as he commences the build- 
ing of the cottage, he at the same time incloses — suppose 



66 



one acre — for a florin meadow, which, if managed as I have 
directed, will produce an abundant crop the first year ; 
and if properl\ attended to, will continue its luxuriance I 
know not how long — perhaps for ever, but I can only answer 
for eleven years. 

The tenant is now arrived, and things proceed very dif- 
ferently. The landlord, no doubt, fosters him a little, 
until the powers of his small farm are brought into action, 
and its produce able to maintain the family. 

The first winter, his well-fed cow (perhaps two) gives 
him milk, and manure follows, with which in May he plants 
PoTATOS as far as it goes : this is followed the ensuing 
year by a small crop of Rye, or Oats. New ground is 
broken up for potatoes the next year ; his tillage field of 
course is extended, until it reaches the limit his landlord is 
pleased to set to it. Black Oats will probably be the va- 
riety he will select, — as more hardy, as of quicker growth, of 
course ripening sooner, so as to escape the blighting early 
frosts of the ungenial climate. Black oats too, less dis- 
posed to lodge than the white, will agree with his potato 
ground, which he probably can enrich further, by burning 
some ashes on contiguous peaty soil. The facility of 
raising potatos by the manure of their cattle and ashes, 
will enable the colonists to rear pigs ; a source of food, 
and perhaps profit. 

To speculate on our mountains, as a new field for cul- 
tivation, will no doubt be deemed wild ; but in these 
alpine tracts, I look upon agriculture rather as a secondary 
consideration, subsidiary to the maintenance of the inhabi- 
tants ; Milk, as with his pastoral ancestors, an impor- 
tant part of his food ; potatoes also a serious addition ; 



57 



and we know this vahiable root will thrive at very great 
elevations : his demand for farinaceous produce will thus 
be moderate, and easily supplied by the rye and oats im- 
mediately following his potatoes, whose strongly manured, 
and well prepared ground will yield tolerable crops, even 
in this unfavourable donate. It will be his landlord's 
policy to restrain his agricultural speculations, by limiting 
his farm. 

Four, perhaps five acres, without including summer's 
grazing for his cows, may be abundantly sufficient, in- 
cluding his meadow. He will have no more labour to 
perform in the field than what will be a relief to a sedentary 
manufacturer; of course the attention of himself and family 
be little diverted from domestic industry. 

What extensive tracts of grassy mountain and moor 
have I passed through in Ireland, in the North of 
England, and above all in Scotland, admirably 
adapted to these speculations : but the incredulity of man 
is a more formidable obstacle to improvement, than any 
resistance thrown in our way by Nature ; and as the po- 
sition that a natural sole of grass in ungenial soils and 
harsh climates, can at once he thrown into a more pro- 
ductive state, than the highest cultivation of man can 
bring his most favourite grounds to, is both so extraordi- 
nary and so new as to justify unbehef, I have taken 
pains in my former Letter to estabhsh the position by 
well-attested facts ; and now, as the success of the pro- 
posed plan of colonization depends entirely on the truth of 
the same position, I shall state another strong and weli- 
attested fact. 

I had by previous correspond^yice, and afterwards in 



58 



person, on his grassy peat lands, taken much pains 
to teach Mr. Young, of Harburn, the culture of florin 
grass, in my usual way, by tilling the ground, and planting 
stolones. Last year, Mr. Young, with much exultation, 
reported complete success. I replied, that I had of 
late changed my measures, and did not now break the 
surface of grassy mountains. Mr. Young's answer was 
very important ; he told me he had taken with him, on 
receipt of my letter, to his new meadow, Mr. Baird of 
Shotts, a gentleman well skilled in the cultivation of fiorin, 
who had obtained in 1815 the highest fiorin premium, and 
whose crop appears on the records of the Highland 
Society to be far greater than any ever raised in 
Great Britain, unless by the Countess of Hard- 
wick e. These gentlemen reported, that a stripe of 
Mr. Young's meadow had not been broken up, and that 
upon this they found a good crop of spontaneous fiorin ; 
and Mr. Young now lamented, that he had broken up any 
of the meadow. This decided success followed protec- 
tion alone. Had the stripe got a light top-dressing, the 
crop would have been much finer ; and it is probable the 
contiguous fence, or drain, relieved it from water. 

The establishment of a colony will give various employ- 
ment to the industrious and unoccupied ; for, in addition to 
the formation of meadows, houses are to be built and roads 
made, that the colony may be accessible with convenience » 



CHAP. III. 



GREEN PASTURE MOUNTAINS. 



My speculations for the employment of the industrious 
and unoccupied poor, in the improvement of their country, 
have in two preceding" chapters been Umited to the for- 
mation of MEADOWS. In the Jirst, for the winter main- 
tenance of the numerous herds and flocks that graze upon 
them in summer ; and in the second, for the winter main- 
tenance of the cows who are. to supply with milk the 
colonists and manufactures I hope to estabhsh in these 
wilds. 

I now proceed to new measures ; still affording ample 
employment to the industrious and unoccupied ; but with a 
different object in view ; — the improvement of these pasture 
grounds, as such. 

I hav e hitherto limited myself to select portions and di- 
minutive patches, operating upon these alone ; but now 
I embrace the whole area, excludmg only such parts as 
are not of sufficient promise to encourage us to expend 
our labour upon them. I have as yet also limited myself 
to one grass, the agrostis stolonifera, diligently extirpat- 
ing every other as it appears. But where pasture is my 
object, I make no selections ; I avail myself of the assistance 
of all grasses. 

" Spmite sua quce $e tollunt in luminis auras." 

As pasture grounds have at all times afforded suste- 



60 



nance to such immense numbers of cattle, in many coun- 
tries the sole support of the human species, it may be 
deemed rash to trust the maintenance of these domesticated 
animals, in so many cases our sole resource for our own 
food, to the precarious supply of provisions spontaneously 
afforded by unassisted nature. 

It seems also to imply great want of ingenuity in those 
concerned in agricultural speculations, that they have not 
devised means of improving our pastures, to enable them 
to supply the increasing demands upon them, made neces- 
sary for an increasing population. 

Such seems to be the opinion of my friend Sir Hum- 
phry Davy, who complains, that very little attention 
" has been paid to the nature of the grasses best adapted 
" to permanent pasture ; perhaps pastures superior to the 
" natural ones, may be made by selecting due proportions 
" of those suited to the soil." 

My able friend is not satisfied with mere complaint; in 
the true philosophical style, he encounters the question 
a prior i, and exerts his cLeiuical skill to investigate the 
characters and properties of the several grasses, from 
which he may Ibrm a reasonable judgment of those that 
are most likely to afford the best pasture to our cattle. 

This was the object in view, when the laborious suite 
of experiments was instituted at WoBURN by the noble 
proprietor, and in which this eminent chemist so fortu- 
nately joined ; — yet with such associates, with the pa- 
tronage, the liberality, and the great agricultural skill of 
the Duke of Bedford, the experience and persevering 
diligence of Mr. SinC/LAIR, it is mortifying to give up a 
pursuit so strenuously sustained. 

Nature is against us, and has rigidly limited the powers 
of man, and will not suffer him to interfere in the formation 
of <i permanent sole of grass. 



m 



To clothe our surface with a verdant coat, seems a fa- 
vourite object of Nature, and for the most beneficent 
purposes : but she v/ill execute it in her own way, and by 
the mixture of a prodigious number of vegetables ; so 
many, that M. St. Pierre tells us, all the research and 
diligence of man could not give the complete natural 
history of all the spontaneous vegetables contained in 
one square perch of ground. 

Let us, by breaking the surface, and by severe tillage, 
exterminate every one of these vegetables, and sow the 
mixture of grass seed we think most desirable ; yet, though 
they should all vegetate the jftrst year, they will soon vanish, 
and we shall find, in two or three seasons, the surface 
occupied by the same mixture that Nature usually pro- 
duces in such soils, and our labour completely tlu'own 
away. 

My first agricultural pursuit was to discover how to 
form the best permanent sole of grass ; and twenty years 
before I laid oft' the gramina as a peculiar department for 
myself, I made it a point to dedicate a small portion of 
every field I laid down to such experiments, and to try 
both mixtures, and one variety of grass, in small plots. 

The first year, the produce was true to the seed ; in 
the second, the varieties sown were little predominant, and 
in the third not to be found. 

Many years afterwards, accident gave me the same 
result in a more extended and more decided manner. 

Investigating the natural history of the several varieties 
of grass, I made many plots, not less than fifty, sowing them 
with all the different kinds, and by attentive weeding for 
four years, keeping out all mixtures. At length, having 
obtained the information I sought for, and given it to the 
world, I ceased weeding ; and in two or three years could 
not distinguish in any plot, the predominance of the va- 



62 



riety that had so long occupied it; all assimilated>to the con- 
tiguous meadow, and were not to be distinguished from it. 

Are we then to give up the attempt to form such a sole 
as we would prefer, or to improve a sole already esta- 
blished ? or is it beyond our power to change the poor and 
unkindly grasses with which spontaneous nature has 
stocked it, for others more nutritive — now (thanks to Sir 
Humphry Davy) that we know them ?— By no means. 
But we must pursue diiferent measures from those my inge- 
nious friends speculate upon. We must not attempt to 
force Nature, and carry our point by violent alterations ; — 
we must concihate her by kindness. We must improve the 
soil which we wish to see clothed with a more kindly de- 
scription of grasses ; and we must change it from a state 
favourable to the production only of coarse, sour grasses, 
and weeds, into one favourable to the production, and 
encouraging to the growth of more kindly and more nu- 
tritive grasses. 

It has been generally supposed, that spontaneous 
Nature clothes our surface with the vegetables, and par- 
ticularly with the grasses, best adapted to the soil in which 
they are to grow. But an attentive observer will soon 
discover, that this is not her usage ; on the contrary, that 
she sows an indiscriminate mixture of grasses on all soils. 
Of these, such as suit the soil they fall in, come forward in 
health, while the grasses ill adapted to it fail off and 
scarcely appear, yet generally preserve their existence. 

If these positions, the result of many years' dihgent ob- 
servation, be well founded, it is upon the soil we should 
operate to change its produce, without troubling ourselves 
to change the grasses, over which we have no power. 

Let us take a cool and careful view of our extensive 
pasture grounds, especially our mountain districts ; let us 
try if we can find any very common description of soil^ 



63 



which we know to be unfavourable to the production of 
kindly pasture. 

I answer for it, such description will perpetually occur 
to us, and to the greatest extent ; — I mean, that where 
an impervious substratum, stopping- the passage of the at- 
mospheric waters downwards, oversatarates the upper 
stratum, the vegetable soil, where it remains and becomes 
acrid, injuring the roots of the grasses that are placed in 
it, and derive their nourishment from it, — this undis- 
charged water occasions our grassy surfaces to yield a 
scanty and unkindly produce, to fail in their verdure, 
and to give up every effort to continue their vegetation 
early in autumn. 

The fact is, the kindly grasses can scarcely exist in 
so ungenial a soil, leaving the possession of the surface 
to the unkindly amphibious tribe, or coarse aquatics. 

I am thus brought back to the very same measures I 
recommended in the two preceding chapters, for the 
formation of spontaneous meadows : — relieve the roots ot 
your grasses from this noxious water, by frequent shallow 
drains ; stimulate your surface by a sprinkling of ani- 
mating material, pure or in compost ; and the unkindly 
tribe in possession, now placed in a soil not suited to 
their nature, will pine and decline, while those more 
grateful to the cattle, long barely existing in the unge- 
nial soil, so soon as it is changed into one more suitable to. 
their nature, will take the lead, and come forward with 
improved luxuriance and verdure. 

These theoretical speculations of mine receive the 
happiest confirmation from the result of a recent experi- 
ment, sufficiently pregnant with important consequences, 
were its own immediate object alone to be looked to. 

1 have in my first chapter dwelt sufiiciently on the 
experiment I had made under the inspection of my noble 
fri^ds the Earls of ^Jaledon and GosFOBD, on the 



64 



formation of valuable meadow, without breaking the 
surface. I here looked only to meadow, and that from 
the produce of owe solitary grass, carefully extirpating all 
others. 

It is from the operation of weeding that I derive the 
information I consider as of so much importance ; for the 
greater part of the intruders upon me is the cock's-foot, 
and the weightiest share of my labour is to extirpate this 
grass, on all other occasions my greatest favourite. 

I was well acquainted with this ungenial piece of ground, 
always in meadow, and for thirty years had never observed 
a single panicle of cock's-foot in it; but so soon as the 
nature of the soil was changed by the simple operations I 
so often detail, this valuable grass emerges from its obscu- 
rity, and presses forward to occupy its share of a surface, 
now made congenial to its nature. 

Several years ago, I had recommended cock's-foot as 
the very best grass for pasture, assigning my reasons ; to 
wit, that it possessed three qualities that make a pasture 
grass valuable, earliness, luxuriance, and quick powers of 
reproduction, after being eaten down. Cock's-foot also 
stands high on Sir Humphry Davy's list, as pelding much 
nutritive matter. 

Is it then unreasonable to expect, that the so??ie ope- 
rations will produce sirnilai; effects on other grounds ; 
and that when we relieve them from water, and enrich their 
surface, that spontaneous cock's-foot will spring up in our 
mountain pasture, as well as in our cold, wet, low-land 
meadow, though this most excellent grass had never been 
seen in either before I 

I may be too sanguine in my expectations, that this 
most valuable of grasses will instantly obey our call, and 
enrich our mountain pastures, so soon as we shall have 
prepared the soil for its reception ; but I know that a total 
change in the herbage will most rapidly take place, and 



65 



that whatever may be the varieties that now come forward, 
they will be kindly and grateful. 

I have in the two preceding chapters detailed the mea- 
sures for discharging- the waters and enriching the surface : 
they are precisely similar to those that will be required for 
mountain pastures ; but with this important difference, 
that in the latter we are relieved from the expense of 
weeding and inclosing. 

Whether after so very considerable an abatement of 
expense, we can look forward with prudence to the en- 
counter of these boundless tracts, is a question that de- 
serves the most serious discussion ; — but what occasion 
have we to look to the magnitude of the whole, when 
the improvement of one or of a few acres brings with it a 
certain value by itself, w ithout inducing any necessity of 
advancing one step farther ? Letus recollect, that whatever 
improvement we make in this >vay is permanent ; our pas- 
ture ground, so far as our exertions reach, amended for 
ever ; and the proofs of our success or failure unequivocal : 
for if we change the nature of our soil, we change the 
colour of the sole ; and the contrast between the original 
surface and that operated on as I have directed, will in 
a very few weeks be most striking. 

We shall soon have other unsuspected testimony : shall 
we, as I promise, change the sour unkindly grasses, 
now occupying the surface, "into others more grateful to 
the" cattle grazing upon it ; they themselves will instantly 
discover the more desirable food, select and dwell upon 
the spots. Shall even their actual preference escape our 
view, in the short visits we may make to our mountain pas-^ 
tures, we shall find they have left unequivocal proofs behind 
them, distinguishing and pointing out the favourite spots 
they had preferred, and dwelled longest upon. 

It would be very desirable to ascertain vfhat it would 
F 



66 



cost to improve a given area by the process I lay down ; 

for although the expense of my small drains might soon 

be determined, the number of them required is perpetually 

varying with the nature of the ground. 

Ashes, our grand fertilizing- material, / Jcnoiv, in fa- 
vourable ground (and all moory mountains are such) will 

not cost more than threepence per cart-load. 

I am unwilling- entirely to give up limey it is so encou- 
raging to the kindly grasses, and particularly to the 
smallest of the clover tribe, known to be most grateful 
to all cattle ; and the certainty of such herbage instantly 
following lime, is well known by the experiment perpetually 
made, of scattering some lime on a peaty mountain, to 
show that the place will immediately be covered with white 
clover. 

How far we can avail ourselves of this costly material 
in our great area, is for the experimentalist to determine ; 
he is, by trying different quantities of this most divisible 
manure, to find what is the smallest quantity that will pro- 
duce a sensible effect, and then the actual reclaimer must 
consider if even this quantity be within his reach ; while 
we know that ashes alone, at threepence per cart, will give, 
pure or in compost, a good stimulating top-dressing on 
very reasonable terms. 

Is not this the moment for us to ascertain all these 
doints? — whether our cold wet grassy mountains be 
actually capable of receiving a considerable degree of im- 
provement? — and whether that improvement is to be at- 
tained by the measures I recommend? — and whether 
these can be executed at an expense that will be amply 
repaid by success ? 

Calculations and estimates before-hand, often prove 
erroneous when they come to be tried, and the expense 
resulting very different from what was promised : let us 



67 



try a mode in which we cannot be misled as to expense ; 
but be able to calculate it with precision before we com- 
mence. 

Let the great proprietors of grassy mountains relieve 
Iheir distressed tenants, by employing the industHous and 
unoccupied, in executing such operations as I recommend, 
whether under the name of experiment or actual practice 
I care not ; let them send parties of ten or twelve, pro- 
perly governed, into different parts of their wilds; let 
them point out the commencement for each, and desire 
them to proceed according to my directions. After such 
a time as the proprietor can afford to employ them, he 
tries what work they have each executed, and he knows 
to a shilling what he has expended ; he can judge w^hether 
the prospect of valuable improvement held out by me be 
realized; and whether, when the present stimulus of finding 
employment for the poor be over, it is worth his while to 
continue the same operations, with no other view than 
that of the benefit he is to derive from them. Shall he 
determine it is not, he has at least the consolation of 
knowing, that every shilling he has expended on my spe- 
culations, has been divided among his own industrious 
tenants, and that he has better bestowed it, in giving 
employrtient with it, than if he had distributed it among them 
gratis. 



CHAP. IV. 

HEATHY MOUNTAINS. 



From green pasture mountams, I proceed to a much 
wilder description, whose improvement has as yet scarcely 
been attempted; and this seems the moment for experiment, 
when, in addition to the prospect of valuable improvement 
from our labours, we know through the Board of Agri- 
culture, that the devising occasion for calling labour into 
action is deemed laudable ; and of course, should unfortu- 
nately our speculations fail, yet the employment tbund by 
them for the industrious and unoccupied, may fairly be 
considered, at this time, as some abatement of the loss 
sustained by the expense incurred in an unsuccessful 
attempt. 

I have sanguine hopes that our eiforts will not be un- 
successful, and shall state my reasons for expecting that 
parts at least of these dreary, unproductive wastes, may be 
made of some value to their proprietors, in place of their 
present nullity. 

Our field is immense, and of very different description, 
graduating- from grounds sufficiently encouraging, into 
impracticability, and even inaccessibility. But it is not to 
this wild extreme we are to look, nor are we to argue from 
its horrors : the whole field is our own ; we have the option of 
its most favourable parts ; nor need we look forward to spe- 



69 



culate how far we shall be able to proceed; the contiguous^ 
and most promising parts, even in case of complete success, 
will long give employment to our most spirited exertions. 

In my plan for improving heatluj mountains, I look no 
farther than to their conversion from useless heath, to grassy 
pasture of some value ; nor can this be deemed a hopeless 
scheme, as we often see green mountain pasture mixed 
with the heathy, and often, even of more considerable 
elevation. 

Our task is then to investigate the cause, — why nature 
in the one case prefers a vegetable useless to man, or his 
cattle ; and in other cases, at the same, or a greater altitude, 
throws up grassy produce of considerable value ; — and to 
inquire, can we operate upon the surface so as to make the 
soil a more favourable matrix for the gramina, and a less 
favourable one to the heath? 

In my former chapter, T have gone sufficiently into the 
subject of the grasses which we mean to encourage, and 
shall now proceed to the natural history of Heath, whose 
extermination is our object. 

In addition to the power which Heath possesses of sus- 
taining the severities of great elevation, it seems endowed 
by nature with another important property, that of bearing 
with much wet, and also with the alternations of drought and 
moisture. From the latter, it is adapted to a pieaty^ soil, 
whose open spongy texture exposes it to such alternations ; 
and thus we find it nearly in exclusive possession of such 
soils at all elevations. Heath is also a species of timber, 
a tree in miniature ; its solid woody texture requiring years 
to attain their full growth, and totally different from the 
succulent vegetables, which, whether annuals or perennials, 
lose in the winter, the whole groivth andybrm they have ac- 
quired in summer. 



70 



This last character is important, as it implies slowness 
of growth, and consequent difficulty in recovering pos- 
session of the surface, after extermination, or even serious 
injury. 

Before I proceed to avail myself of this knowledge of 
the nature of heath and the habits of the grasses I mean 
to substitute in its place ; I shall quote one strong instance, 
in which this substitution actually took place, without any 
previous intention of transferring possession from heath to 
the gramina. 

Some twenty-five years ago, the Marquis of Aber- 
CORT^ attempted to form a plantation near the conical 
summit of his mountain, Bessy Bell : an acre was in- 
closed, the peaty surface dug, and of course the heath 
exterminated. 

Being on a visit to his Lordship, fifteen or sixteen years 
after this acre had been planted with forest trees, and then 
having taken up the gramina as a department; and ob- 
serving, at about a mile distance, the strong contrast 
between the verdure of this small spot, (as it appeared) 
and the brown heath every where surroundingit, I ascended 
the mountain, to make observations on the effect produced 
by operations at so great an elevation. 

I found the young trees all quite dead, except the alders, 
which were making weak suckers from their roots ; that 
the heath had not resumed possession ; that some varieties 
of grass were there in tolerable good health, particularly 
the agrostis stolonifera; but that the growth of these 
grasses was much impeded by a profusion of moss or fog, 
choaking them up : — anxious to give the grasses fair play on 
such disadvantageous ground, I requested his Lordship's 
agent, who accompanied me, to send up some men with 
rakes to destroy this fog, which was done; and three 
years afterwards, when I paid another visit to Barons- 



71 



Court, 1 found the green patch at the top of the mountain, 
far more splendid than when I saw it before. 

The circumstances attending this acre are most encou- 
raging : the elevation was very great — an height to which 
it cannot be necessary to ascend, until the improvement on 
the skirts and lower regions are executed to a vast extent. 
The heath, once exterminated, had not attempted to resume 
possession ; the gramina had come forward of themselves, 
without the encouragement we can so easily hold out to 
them by draining and top-dressing. 

Let us then avail ourselves of the lesson taught us by 
my noble host, and, with the object more directly in view, 
take the necessary steps for converting the russet surface 
of our mountain into a more cheerful green, and for making 
what is now unproductive, taluab/e, as well as beautiful. 

I proceed to describe the soils we are to select, having 
an option on which we shall commence our operations, 
small at first, but which I hope we shall soon receive en- 
couragement to extend widely. 

A characteristic feature by which peaty soil (more es- 
pecially when spongy) differs from our common soil, is 
its facility of absorbing a great quantity of water, and also 
of parting with it ; hence light boggy soils are subject to 
the extremes of zcet and drought. To such ^-iolent alterna- 
tions Nature seems to have enabled heath to accommodate 
itself, while they are fatal to all the vegetables we cultivate, 
as well as the grasses. We must therefore avoid spongy 
FIBROUS soil, and select the firmer peat, common in all 
mountains ; as the turf we cut for fuel, at considerable 
elevations, is far superior to what we obtain from our 
lower mosses. 

We commence by exterminating the old possessor, heath, 
by the best means we can devise, fire or spade ; indeed, 
we often can pull them up by the roots, by hand. If the 



72 



surface be unequal, we must bring it to a coarse level, 
striking off with the spade the small rising tammocks, and 
tufts of heathy which when dry will assist us greatly in 
lighting our fires. 

Our following measures are exactly the same as in the 
case of grassy mountains : — discharge the waters, enrich 
the surface, and invoke Nature to stock it with excellent 
food for your grazing cattle ; and I pledge myself she 
answers ybur call. 

It is not easy, a priori, to determine the distance at 
which the drains are to be cut from each other ; discharge 
of the water is the object, and this must be done effectually. 
I should guess eighteen feet to be a good distance, and 
eighteen or twenty inches the depth of the drains. Their 
angle (the vertex down) should be obtuse, or at least a 
right one, to prevent the tread of cattle filling them up ; 
and the greater the width at the top, the more stulF v/c 
raise. This is the source of our fuel for ashes; and as we 
raise it, we should dispose it for drying, that w^ may kindle 
our fires as soon as possible. 

If in sinking we reach the substratum, its material will 
probably be much more productive of ashes than the pure 
peat, and of course very valuable to us : nor should we 
hesitate to sink our drains deeper, for the purpose of ob- 
taining a great quantity of combustible material ; for the 
more we enrich the surface, the surer we are of grasses 
springing up and clothing it. 

Wq light our fires in the intervals between our drains, 
and when burned out, we spread the ashes on the spot with 
shovels ; and I think would do well to rake them lightly 
into the very upper surface. 

These operations are in themselves slight, neither capital 
nor previous preparation requisite. Shall the proprietors 
of peaty mountains even deem my specuations plausible, 



73 



wbat a field do I open for the employment of the i?iclus' 
trious and unoccupied ! The very expenment will afford 
much, without opening a source of fraud and imposition. 
Let the proprietor employ a party, from six to tv.eh e, of 
his distressed tenants or neighbours. He points out to them 
the field for their exertions, the fountain of their present 
relief, and I hope the theatre of his own approaching 
enrichment. He puts this party into the hands of a discreet 
person, with the above direction of mine as the rules they 
are to be governed by. He orders them to commence, and 
proceed one, tno, or three weeks. He then examines the 
area they have brought within this new pale of improve- 
ment. He pronounces whether, at this ascertained expendi- 
ture, he has done enough for an experiment ; and, in pro- 
portion to his confidence in yne, and his zeal to find 
employment for the industrious and unoccupied, he 
will stop to await the result, or he will venture a few 
weeks more, and perhaps increase the number of his parties 
of labourers. 

The success will by no means be equivocal; his opera- 
tions have changed the broicn surface of his mountains in:o 
black, and he must wait with patience for the next season 
of powerful vegetation, to see if nature has answered his 
call, and is proceeding in her usual way to clothe his black 
surface with a green sole. I envy him the pleasure he 
will feel, when he observes the nascent grasses appearing 
gradually, and occupying in succession the favourable soil 
he has prepared for them ; and I anticipate the exultation 
with which he will, from a distance, point out the contrast 
between the splendid glow of his own area, and the 
sombrous gloom of what still remain^ in the possession of 
its old occupants, the heath. 



CHAP. V. 



NAKED SANDS. 



There is another field of vast extent open to us, upon 
which I am not without hopes, that a thorough acquaint- 
ance with the habits of the grassy tribe may enable us to 
make some impression, and that purely by the aid of the 
same associate Nature, upon whose assistance I show in 
the preceding chapters I have so much reliance, and who, 
I expect, may be induced to commence her favourite ope- 
ration of clothing our surface with a verdant sole of grass 
by some slight melioration of the present surface, through 
means not beyond very moderate powers. 

This field is of immeasurable extent, and far beyond the 
reach of human exertions to make an impression upon it 
that will bear any sensible proportion to its magnitude, or 
even when viewed by itself be of very considerable extent ; 
yet I have hopes that in the most favourable parts of it we 
may rescue some small portions from the barrenness, and 
desolation, which it at present exhibits. 

I mean the naked sands, often loose and blowing about 
to the great injury of the contiguous grounds, too often 
reduced by the agency of the^^nds to the same sterile state 
with its dreary unproductive neighbour. Indeed, we have 
good reason to believe, that such sandy deserts, already 
occupying so much of the surface of our globe, have been 



75 



long on the increase, and have made mischievous en- 
croachments on the habitable and cultivable world. 

In our own islands, the blowing sands in the Hebrides, 
and even in some parts of the main land of Scotland, 
have in the memory of man committed extensive depreda- 
tions ; and in Ireland, in the north of Donegal, we 
have still remaining, the walls of a house begun by a Lord 
BoYNE, standing in the midst of a sandy desert, the 
surface of which is now on a level with the second story 
of the building. 

1 have not hopes, that by any interfei'ence of ours, or 
by any style of cultivation, we can entirely arrest the pro- 
gress of such desolating clouds of sand ; but there may be 
cases of less violence, where, under favourable circum- 
stances, the ingenuity of man may devise means of clothing 
the surface, so as to prevent the loose materials from 
being blown over other grounds, to their injury and rum. 

Let us remember, that, if we can clothe our sandy surface 
with a grassy sole, we carry two important points ; we 
arrest the loose sand made mischievous by every stirring 
wind, and we create a valuable] grassy surface where 
nothing was produced before ; for we know the diminutive 
varieties of grass that occupy such dry soil alvrays to 
afford a most kindly pasture. 

Let those who start at the wildness of my projects, 
recollect that this is the moment for experiment ; that 
though our hopes of success may not be very sanguine, yet, 
shall we make the trial, one result is certam, that the pro- 
prietor hghtens the distress of his unfortunate tenants, and 
that whatever expenditure he chooses to encounter, his 
money is disposed of in the most charitable manner, in 
finding employment for the industrious and unoccupied poor. 
It remains for me to shov/, that my speculations are not 



76 



£0 wild as they may at first appear ; that the idea of con- 
verting barren sands into kindly pastures, is not suggested 
by the pressure of the moment, and by the mere wish of 
giving employment to the poor ; for it had years ago oc- 
curred both to myself and others ; and is now brought 
forward as subsidiary to the exertions of the Board of 
Agriculture, as one measure, among others, by which em- 
ployment may be given to the industrious and unoccupied 
poor. 

Some six or seven years ago, being on a visit to my 
friend Earl O'Neil, his Lordship pointed out to me some 
naked sand hills, which injured the view from the front of 
Sii aide's Castle ; and, as he knew grasa to be my depart- 
ment, asked me if T could make these little hills green. 

\Ye went to examine them, and found every where, 
though most thinly scattered, detached roots of the agrostic 
tribe, with two or three poor stolones issuing from each, 
I observed to his Lordship, that as this grass grew there 
spontaneously, and preserved its existence in such poverty, 
that by enriching the surface a little, we must both add to 
the number of roots and increase the length of the stolones ; 
and that having thus formed the commencement of a sole, a 
great number of diminutive grasses would soon start up 
and form a perfect sole, both verdant to the eye, and yield- 
ing some very kindly pasture. 

Where is the material to enrich the surface with I Burn 
ashes in the contiguous moor, sprinkle the surface with 
this divisible material, harrow it in lightly with a bush ; and 
you not only meliorate the surface to encourage it to be 
productive, but you change the very loose texture of the 
sands, and by formmg them into a sort of paste, make them 
less liable to be disturbed by the wind. 

The idea of clothing naked, and even blowing sands by 



77 



means of the stolones of my favourite agrostis, occurred 
also to another gentleman, well acquainted with the incon- 
venience occasioned by such a moveable surface. 

Two years after my intercourse with Earl O'Xeil on the 
subject, being in Edinburgh, I was told by my kind host 
Mr. AiissLiE, that a Mr. Brown had requested to be in- 
troduced to me, for the purpose of consulting me on a 
question relative to grass, which he considered as of much 
importance. 

AVhen Mr. Brown came, he told me he had been exten- 
sively employed in managing estates in theLEWlS Isla>^ds, 
where great injury was done by the moving sand ; that 
he had observed in many spots and patches, the sand held 
down by a grass running its shoots along the surface ; that 
he had returned lately irom the main, and, hearing much of 
florin grass, had been shown some, and immediately recog- 
nized the long-stringed grass he had seen in the Hebrides^ 
holding down the sand : that his object in seeking an 
introduction to me was, to request my opinion on the 
practicability of cultivating this grass on loose sands, 
where he had observed such beneficial effects from its 
spontaneous growth. I gave Mr. Brown my opinion deci- 
dedly on the practicability of the measure, with full written 
directions as to the mode I thought he ought to pursue ; 
and I promised to communicate further with him by letter, 
when he should apply to me. Not hearing from him, I 
wrote to my friend to inquire about him, and found he had 
got into employ in a part of Scotland not troubled with 
blowing sands. 

With Mr. Brown I did not limit myself, as in the former 
case, to the spontaneous efforts of Nature, for clothing his 
surface, and arresting the progress of his mischievous 
enemy. I advised him, very late in August, when the sto- 
lones had acquired strength enough for vegetation, and 



78 



were also in the greatest abundance, to scatter as many of 
them over the surface as he could afford, and then to 
throw some shovelfulls of sand over them ; hoping that 
until they exerted their vegetative powers, and actually 
rooted in the sand, they would act mecJianicalli/, and by 
their long strings entangle the sand, and increase the diffi- 
culty of disturbing it. 

I advised also, in his Islands, to gather such sea-wrack 
as would not make krlp, and, having previously suffered it 
to ferment a little in heaps, to make it dissolve more readily, 
to scatter it over the surface, both with a view to enrich it, 
and also as in the former case to entangle the sand. 

Although I had on all other occasions decidedly forbid 
the propagation of this agrostis by seed, on account of its 
slowness of growth, and the certainty of its being choked 
up by intruding rivals ; yet I advised Mr. Brown to try 
seed, of which this grass is very productive, secure that, at 
least in this field, we should not be disturbed by rivals ; nor 
was I so anxious about the species of grasses that should 
grow on this untried soil, as to get any thing to vegetate, 
and aid by its roots to fix the loose sand. 

I have, in this and the preceding chapters, laid open fields 
of immeasurable extent to the ingenuity and industry of 
man ; the magnitude of the areas should not discourage us, 
for it is not to their magnitude our eff'orts are to be pro- 
portioned. Let us endeavour to advance a little upon 
their peripheries, and thus : 

" Oi-as magni evolvere belli/' 

I must repeat, that where pasture is our object, as in 
this and the two preceding chapters, we have great encou- 
ragement. We are relieved from many previous operations ; 
no inclosure nor even weeding necessary ; we press di- 
rectly to our point, and operate immediately. 



79 



Let not grave agTicultiirists, in the excess of their 
wisdom, pronounce at once on the folly of these measures. 
No doubt I may be too sanguine ; but before these solemn 
gentlemen take upon themselves to arrest proceedings, I 
in treat them to take a cool view of the subject. 

The question is, can we make any advance in im- 
proving certain wilds of vast extent, and in rendering 
them o^some use to man? — to such extent as he can each, 
and particularly at this time, when he has got so powerful 
a force in his hand as the Board of Agriculture wishes to 
find employment for? Is this question to be decided a 
priori, and in the negative, by pompous wisdom? — Or are 
we, even doubting, to try practicability by experiment, on a 
small scale and at trifling expense ? 







CHAP. VI. 

UNTOUCHED SURFACES IN ENGLAND. 



I HAVE often lamented, that the agrostis stolonifera, 
whose hitherto unknown value I had taken so much 
pains to press upon the world with so much success, had 
not made the same progress in England as in other 
countries, and had in so many instances been received 
with coldness, and more than doubt, of the great acqui- 
sition I had boasted it to be to the agricultural world ; 
and I had determined, and even declared my intention of 
giving up both hopes, and attempts, to estabUsh its culture 
South of the Tweed. 

Some recent circumstances have changed my determi- 
nation; the cause of so many failures has been ascertained; 
the English agrostides, which I persisted too long in 
assuming to be the same variety with the Irish, ^lyq proved 
to be of varieties decidedly inferior to the Irish in luxuriance ; 
and, as I have great reason to believe, much less furnished 
withsaccharum. 

My noble correspondent the Marchioness of Salisbury 
had early given me a caution on this subject, reminding me 
of the great inferiority of the English Ivy to the Irish ; 
but my too great confidence in the similarity of the pro- 
ductions of Nature in latitudes so nearly the same, made 
me incredulous. 



81 



The variety that comes forward spontaneously in Devon- 
shire is mostly the agrostis vulgaris, as his GRACE OF 
Bedford was so good as to inform me; and my friend 
Mr. Preston, M. P., assures me, that in his plantations 
the agrostis vulgaris is to the stolonifera as three to one. 

The other circumstance that induces me to resume my 
efforts to establish this valuable grass in at least some parts 
of England, is the flattering attention I have received 
from the Bath Agricultural Society, whose worthy 
President Sir Ben. Hobhouse has done me the honour 
of transmitting to me, the last volume of the Transactions 
of that respectable Society ; by which I find the subject 
has been treated with the greatest attention: and I have 
no doubt, the memoirs there published by SiR I. Cox 
HiPPiSLEY, and the Rev. W. B. Barter, who was 
hoDOured by the Society with a premium for his successful 
cultivation of fiorin, will stimulate others to partake of the 
advantages deriving by their neighbours from the intro- 
duction of this new vegetable. 

Industrious and unoccupied poor, are as abundant in 
England as elsewhere ; and, it is probable, the more im- 
mediate object in the contemplation of the Board of Agri- 
culture. Mountains are more thinly scattered over the 
Southern than the Northern parts of the island ; and it is 
mostly on highly elevated districts that I have found em- 
ployment for the unoccupied. 

When I descend into the low country of England, I 
lose my grand coadjutor, severity of climate ; and here 
too I find there is a rival, the agrostis vulgaris, already in 
possession of at least the more Southern part of the island. 

Can I find no other ally, but elevation ? no other seve- 
rities, but those of climate ?— I think I can. Cold, moists 
moory, di^di peaty lands are unfavourable to agriculture; 
and I pointed out to my friend Mr. Curwen, as we tra- 
G 



82 



veiled through Cumberland, considerable tracts of this 
description, that never had been broken up ; and we agreed, 
they were well adapted to florin culture, for then I was 
not aware of what spontaneous Nature could do. 

These grounds were generally covered with a grassy sole, 
no doubt chiefly our oivn agrostis ; for I met with it every 
where in Cumberland as abundant and a& luxuriant as 
in Irelat^d, and the agrostis vulgaris never obtruded 
itself upon me. Here then we have a wide field, even 
what I saw ; and I hear the same description is extensively 
spread over the North of England; and their never having 
been broken up, proves that the proprietors deemed them 
unfit for agricultural purposes. Can we then change these 
weak pastures into rich meadows? What a stimulus do 
we give to the agriculture of the better parts of the 
country ? We greatly reduce the price of hay, and thus 
enable farmers to keep more cattle to labour their lands 
better, and to make more manure. 

This description too has generally a cold retentive bottom, 
and is saturated with undischarged water, exactly the same 
case with much of the grassy mountains, and fitted pre- 
cisely for the same measures I have dwelled upon so 
much with respect to them. The same severe surface- 
draining and plentiful top-dressing, must produce the same 
effects : the rapid change from a poor soil to a rich one, 
from a wet, to a dry one, would (as I have so often seen) 
throw the native agrostis stolonifera into high luxu- 
riance, and repress the aquatics, now the chief possessors. 
More careful weeding would probably be required, as 
we have not severity of climate to aid us in combating 
intruders. 

I have no personal knowledge of England South of 
Cumberland ; but I have no doubt there must be other 
tracts in their low countries, adapted to the nteasures I 



83 



have recommended, and by them affording employment to 
the industrious and unoccupied. 

I have long looked wishfully to the English Fens, 
and have often shown to gentlemen connected with Lin- 
coln and Cambridgeshire, and particularly to Earl 
St. Germ a ins, a rich florin meadow, so low that its 
surface never rose more than twelve inches above the level 
of the perpetually stagnant water : no other crop that I 
am acquainted with could have been advantageously pur- 
sued on such low ground ; yet my seventh crop is now pro- 
mising well upon it. I am indeed particularly careful to 
extirpate nascent aquatics ; but I know too little of the 
English fens to press the subject. 

I expect that, as often in my own country, the fen or 
bog passes into a firm soil by a slow gradation, leaving a 
broad belt of flat moist soil, little elevated above the adja- 
cent bog or fen, and which, when opened, would show the 
stagnant water at the bottom of the drains, and probably 
at a greater distance than the twelve inches I mentioned. 
The perpetual discharge by these, would prevent the 
water from over-saturating the soil, and becoming acrid 
about the roots of the plants ; such description, if it exists, 
is no doubt covered with a grassy sole, and would of 
course be well adapted to the preceding measures. The 
vicinity of the water would, I am confident, prevent the ob- 
trusion of the agrostis vulgaris, while it would not injure 
our amphibious stolonifera. 

Deep alluvial bottom occasionally submerged, 
would be far more productive in this way than in any other. 
I should hope that upon such grounds the agrostis vulgaris 
would not obtrude, and occasional submersions would not 
injure my crop, standing or cut. Very frequent drains 
indeed will be required to let off the water rapidly, and to 



84 



keep it as far distant as we can from the surface and roots 
of the grass. 

Attentive and persevering weeding will be found parti- 
cularly necessary on such low moist meadows, most pro- 
ductive in coarse aquatics; but this drainage, and weeding, 
more severe and requisite here, will occasion more labour ^ 
and secure employment to the industrious and unoccupied. 

An interesting field remains in the South of England, to 
"which my attention has been more than once called in the 
most flattering manner. — I mean Dartmoor mountain, in 
Devonshire. 

The liberality of the Royal Proprietor to the Bath 
AND West of England Agricultural Society, excited 
their gratitude, and roused their exertions, to attempt the 
improvement of this most ungenial tract. For years they 
offered premiums for an Essay on the improvement of 
Dartmoor, but did not succeed in obtaining any ; and 
when afterwards I gave them my sentiments on the 
subject, they honoured me with a valuable medal, and 
immediately proposed a premium for the cultivation of 
florin ON Dartmoor. 

Most flattering and lucrative offers were made to myself 
from high authority, through a most respectable Vice- 
President of the Bath Society, to induce me to engage in 
this Herculean labour; but my late period of hfe deterred 
me fi'om accepting the tempting off'er. 

Where could we find a finer field for the employment of 
the industrious and unoccupied? Am I not justified for 
stepping out myself, and for calling on the Bath Society 
as my coadjutor ? Strange as my former measures may 
have seemed, that respectable Society gave me their most 
decided support ; and their premiums have produced mea- 
dows, though not equal either to my expectations or pro- 



85 



mises, yet exceeding the hay crops ever raised in Eng- 
land. 

Their late Transactions show, that of themselves they 
took a most judicious step ; and by proposing a premium 
for the cultivation of their own agrostides, brought a most 
important point to issue ; and having luckily fallen into the 
hands of an acute and patient gentleman, the Rev. W. B. 
Barter, have ascertained, as I shall prove from Mr* 
Barter s facts, that the English agrostides are inferior to 
the Irish, both in the quantity and sweetness of their hay; 
and yet exceed, in quantity at least of their crops, those of 
any other grasses they mow in England. 

The Bath Society, having kept pace with me so long, 
will not 1 hope decline to follow me one step farther; and 
havino^ tried what their own agrostides can do under cul- 
tivation, when planted out, will permit me to try through 
them, if I can call their spontaneous agrostides into luxu- 
riance as I can do our own. We have now a new motive 
common to us both, for the Bath Society seems as anxious 
to find employment for the industrious and unoccupied, as 
the Board of Agriculture, or myself : let us then make our 
joint effort on the alpine wastes of Dartmoor. My hopes 
of success are sanguine ; and should we fail, we have the 
comfort of knowing that no other has as yet succeeded. 

My measures are already fully detailed ; the local appli- 
cation of them alone remains. Let the Bath Society 
persuade the proprietors of the ground I shall describe, 
to permit them to improve at the utmost two acres for ex- 
periment at their own expense, the produce belonging still 
to the proprietor ; who must be interested as owner of the 
contiguous ground, whose improvement depends on the 
success of the experiment. 

One acre of grassy sole, ^nd one acre of heath, the 
former not too shallow, and the peat of the latter not 



86 

fibrous or spongy; — the inclosure, drainage, and top- 
dressing oHhese wiW cost the Society very little. Weeding 
I have no doubt I shall scarcely trouble. I have often 
complained when I have not severities to assist me in this 
operation ; but I am well assured I shall not be stinted on 
Dartmoor, as Nature has bestowed them in greater pro- 
fusion on this mountain tract, than it seems entitled to, 
either from latitude or elevation. 

Both Bessy Bell and Knocklaid are higher moun- 
tains than Dartmoor ; yet I saw our spontaneous stolo- 
nifera in good health on the summit bf each ; and the 
strong stolo my friend Mr. Dickenson inclosed to me, 
which he had himself found growing near the prison on 
Dartmoor, was not like the agrostides of Lower Devon, 
the vulgaris, but the true stolonifera. 



CHAP. VIL 

PEAT BOG. 



1st, WITH A VIEW TO THE IMPROVEMEl^T OF ITS 
SURFACE. 

The immeasurable peat bogs that cover so much of our 
surface in the British Isles, have been long- considered as 
a most extensive field, requiring only the exertions of man 
to bring them within the agriculturist's pale, and to make 
them, like the rest of our surface, produce food for himself 
and his cattle. 

I am confident this immense area has not escaped the 
attention of the Board of Agriculture, and that the re- 
claiming some of these desolate tracts has been Speculated 
on by them among the means of employing the industrious 
and unoccupied; and I fear that where the nation itself, 
with its purse open, has totally failed, the Board of Agri- 
culture will not be successful to a great extent. 

It is now eight years since Parliament directed their 
attention to the improvement of the bogs in one part of the 
United Kingdom, and, pointing out the measures by which 
it was thought this great object was likely to be forwarded, 
most liberally voted £ 5000. to be applied to the purpose. 
They afterwards voted £5000. more ; and, in full confidence 
that their money would be honestly applied to the great 



88 



national object for which it was voted, gave another grant 
of a much larger sum, and added £12,000. to the former 
£10,000. 

Were not the expenditure of this whole sum, with that 
of a debt incurred, minutely detailed to the Parliament 
itself, and by them to the public; I should be afraid to 
assert, that not one shilling of the £22,000. was laid out 
on any of the operations held out to be necessary for the 
improvement of these bogs ; but that the wliole sum was 
distributed among individuals, under the names (assumed 
as a qualification) of Engineers and Surveyors, while 
a spade was never put into the ground. 

Though not the shghtest attempt was made to carry the 
object of Parliament into effect practically, it might be 
expected information on the subject at least would have 
been obtained from national liberahty ; and though actual 
practice might have cut too deep into a fund from the 
beginning destined to other purposes, yet that public ex- 
pectation might have been gratified by a few experiments, 
holding out encouragement to future exertions, and 
pointing out by their success, the measures to be adopted 
by those who should make new efforts to reclaim this un- 
subdued domain of Nature. 

Nothing similar occurs ; I cannot find that a single acre, 
or even perch of bog was reclaimed out of the grant. The 
unbroken sum was appropriated to the sole purpose of 
PATRONAGE ; and the reports made to ParUament give 
the lists of the individuals among whom it was distributed, 
with the fortunes made by each separately, from their 
share of national liberality. 

I have more than once entered into the obscure question 
of the original formation of the unwieldy masses of com- 
bustible substance, that load and render barren so much of 
our surface. Their improvement too has been a favourite 



89 



subject with me, and not now encountered by me for the 
first time ; yet, Herculean as the labour may be that is re- 
quired for reclaiming- such formidable morasses, I fear it 
is not so manageable as to serve tlie purpose of the Board 
of Agriculture, by affording prompt employment for the 
industrious and unoccupied. 

My speculations on the subject shall be hmited to two 
fields of action ; — the immediate surface of these bogs as 
they now stand, and the lower surface that remains after 
the unwieldy mass of peaty matter is carried away. 

The soil of these great bogs, like all the surfaces wc 
have hitherto encountered, is loaded with undischarged 
water, which must be let off with much caution ; fordrought 
is an enemy equally formidable and, I fear, not to be sub- 
dued, where the fibrous light spongy peat reaches to the 
depth of a very few feet ; nor would I be tempted to the 
encounter of such a bog. 

Where we find the sponge of the upper surface very 
shallow, and the fibre of the peat in an advanced stage of 
decomposition, we may hope to give it such consolidation 
as will fit it for agricultural purposes ; for the danger of 
our drought is not here so great ; and this can only be done 
by carrying in great quantities of earthy or clayey mate- 
rial from the exterior, to be well mixed up, and blended 
with the actual surface peat. 

, The late Bog Commissioners, in their instructions, refer 
much to the subsoil for these consolidating materials, and 
talk warmly of hme-stone gravel, which they seem to expect 
to find beneath the peaty moss. 

I never was fortunate in my searches for a valuable sub- 
stratum, though I know it sometimes exists, but always 
inaccessible ; for so soon as we open a pit, it soon fills with 
water, and from that time we are disabled from availing 
ourselves of the lower material, however valuable for 



90 



agricultural purposes ; and when this material is to be 
carried to any, even small distance, the portage over deep 
wet bog becomes intolerably expensive. Hence it soon 
appears, that contiguity of the consolidating material is of 
more importance than its quality. 

The formidable extent of most of these bogs, and the 
load of water they are always incumbered with, and which 
previous to operations for reclaiming them must be dis- 
charged, has given rise to an opinion, that the work is too 
great to be encountered by individuals, — that the force of 
the nation^ or at least of the great proprietor , must be 
called into action, to execute these general operations, 
before the field will be ready for the diminutive exertions of 
the individuals who are to encounter their smaller portions. 

This opinion is founded in error; I have shown more at 
large, that the work cannot be facilitated by any previous 
operations ; that there is but one description of persons, by 
whom the business of reclaiming our bogs, great or small, 
can be undertaken, that is, the actual holder of the con- 
tiguous farm, I mean the land continuous with the bog. 

This personage must level and scarify the surface of the 
bog he advances into with small drains ; and he must carry 
into it the consolidating material from the nearest place be 
can find it in. Can the industrious and unoccupied poor 
be called in to assist in these diminutive operations, their 
emploj ment will be abundant; for small as each portion 
may be in itself, the number of the whole is infinite. 

This I am confident is the only mode in which the re- 
claiming our great bogs can be encountered with any pro- 
spect of advancing upon them with success. Shall PARr 
LIAMENT or the great proprietors contrive to aid the 
adjoining landholders, by ^assisting them in paying for the 



91 



labour of the industrious and unoccupied, two important 
points will be Camed ; — improvement will advance, and 
employment will be found for the distressed labourers. 

But who can expect that the Parliament, after having 
been already so gulled, will again embark in this adventure V. 
The great proprietor is differently circumstanced ; it is upon 
his own estate the improvement is to be carried on, and the 
ground reclaimed must in some years revert to himself. 
Besides, the persons who will earn the money he is laying 
out, are probably (and he may make it a condition) his 
own starving tenants, or under-tenants. His own situation, 
or that of his agent, must enable him to see that he is not 
imposed on. Let him give, at his own suit, a small n umber 
of the distressed and unoccupied labourers to as n^iany in- 
dustrious tenants, holding the edge of his bog, as he finds 
willing to engage in the work with spirit : let him stipulate 
the assistance the tenant himself is to give in cai'rying on 
his own work for his own sole benefit during his leevse ; and 
let the landlord rigidly hold in his own hand, the payment 
of these additional forces he has raised for the melioration 
of his own estate, and for the laudable purposes held out by 
the Board of Agriculture. 

There is an extensive description of peaty surface 
spread over much of England as well as the other parts of 
the United Kingdom, which I am sanguine enough to 
hope would admit a considerable degree of improvement 
at an expense within bounds ; and at the same time wo.^ld 
afford employment to the industrious and unoccupied, 

I mean peat moss thinly covering a barren vapid sand,, 
and generally clothed with a poor stunted heath. I know 
not a description of ground more decidedly unproductive;, 
and which seems improvable for agricultural purposf3s 
only by the importation of a firmer material, and its mixtu re 
with stimulating manure. 



92 



I wish much to see the spontaneous powers of Nature 
tried also on this wretched surface ; the expense would be 
less than in any of the former cases, as we are relieved 
irom drainage. Can ashes be procured by the combustion 
of some of the peat, with a portion of the substratum or 
contiguous clay, the surface could be enriched on very 
moderate terms. Coal is cheap in many parts of Eng- 
land, and kilns for the combustion of any earthy material 
may be Hghted at very little expense, and thus ashes pro- 
cured in sufficient quantities. 

Were the surface levelled, peat and sand mixed, we 
know the heath would not resume possession, and I am 
certain with moderate encouragement the gramina would ; 
for I have often observed, where the surface of a vapid 
red sand has been laid bare, that some scattered solitary 
agrostides have appeared. 

It is very many years since I saw Bagshot Heath ; 
and from my faint recollection, it was exactly of this 
description. Now we know that the stolones sold by 
London seedsmen for florin were gathered on Bagshot 
Heath ; — the question is not, were these the true stoloni' 
fera ? The fact is certain, that spontaneous agrostides 
are abundant there ; and since they come forward without 
encouragement, no doubt when the surface was prepared 
to invite them, they would spring up in greater abundance, 
and would soon be accompanied by other diminutive 
grasses, together forming a green sole, and affording some 
pasture. 

The experiment at least might be tried on a small scale, 
^and some employment thus afforded to the poor ; and so 
far as experiment, a very small quantity of Hrae might be 
tiied. 



CHAP. VIIL 



PEAT BOG. 



WITH A VIEW TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF ITS 
UNDER-SURFACE. 

By the under surface, (perhaps the phrase may be im- 
proper) I mean the new surface laid bare when the un- 
wieldy mass of peat that touched it, and impeded its 
improvement, is carried off. 

This is an Herculean labour, too weighty to be repaid by 
the acquisition of the ground hitherto useless, but now ap- 
plicable to agricultural purposes. Some very favourable 
circumstances must occur, to enable the proprietor to 
disencumber himself of this Homeric 

— Elaaiov Cix,0o5 apoupri^ — 

this cumbrous mass of earth, before he can avail himself 
of the new field that has not yet been exposed to the view 
of man. 

In Scotland, ingenuity has devised means of making 
the under-surface accessible. Mr. Drummond Home has 
contrived means of conveying his useless masses of peat 
into the river Forth, which carries them off, leaving him- 
self a valuable soil, inaccessible to him before, but ol 



94 



which he is now availing himself with much spirit, and to a 
considerable extent. 

Our great consumption of peat as fuel, assists us 
powerfully in getting rid of the load of uncultivable ma- 
terial that so often encumbers us. My fi'iend James 
Scott, Esq., following the practice of his father, has 
supplied the City of Derry with turf for very many 
years ; and has carried off the peaty mass, some feet deep, 
from a large area, now by his exertions bearing valuable 
crops. 

These, at least so far as considerable extent goes, are 
I fear solitary instances. Many circumstances must concur 
to make this under surface fit for agricultural purposes. 
Mr. Scott luckily has a good clay ; so I find has Mr. 
Drummond Home ; but the under soil is seldom encou- 
raging. When my chemical friends tried the material of 
the substratum I sent them, (and it was a most common 
one, a whitish ponderous viscid clay,) they found, on 
analysing it, eighty-three parts silex, sixteen alumine, 
and one oxide of iron ; — a soil little favourable to the pro- 
duction of grain crops: besides, it is generally low; and 
complete discharge of the water, attended with much dif- 
ficulty, is indispensably necessary. We must then, in 
ninety-nine places out of a hundred, where the upper 
peat is cut away, look for other crops than the farinaceous, 
and a style of culture adapted to the harsh, and more 
generally the peaty soil we have still to work upon. 

The improvement of cut-out moss has long occupied 
my attention : it was the first agricultural topic I ventured 
to bring before the public, and I now resume the subject 
with peculiar pleasure ; for I consider this species of im- 
provement, as the most copious source extant for the 
employment of the industrious and unoccupied; and that 



95 



upon which their labour may be constantly put in action 
iu innumerable places at once, and with a certainty that 
the most valuable results will follow, and with a rapidity 
unequalled in any other style of improvement; and also 
that the value created by it will bear a far greater propor- 
tion to the expense incurred, than could be procured by 
any other exertions of pure manual labour. 

I have also to add in favour of the measures I wish to 
see carried into effect, that they are not theoretical specu- 
lations, founded on general principles and high prohabi' 
titles, like some of the preceding : for before I ventured 
to propose them to the world, experiments were carefully 
and patiently made, success ascertained; and now, after the 
lapse of several years, the meadows formed on cut-out moss 
of the very worst description, and utterly unfit for any 
other culture, continue to produce crops, not to be ap- 
proached in quantity or quality by the meadows formed 
in the old way, and loaded with the best dung to any 
amount. 

It is eight or nine years since I published a pamphlet, 
the most important topic in which was the improvement 
of cut-out moss. Now as the positions there laid down 
have never been controverted, and as the experience 
of so many years has given to myself the most complete 
confirmation of their truth, I shall state some few of 
them as laid down in that pamphlet, which was honoured 
with a medal. 

Page 17. — Under the head of Wet Morass ; comes a 
" description of a ground well known to, and actually in the 
" possession of most farmers and gentlemen in the North 
" of Ireland, as well as in many other parts of the United 
** Kingdom — I mean cut-out moss, 

^' The facihty with which the very xuoi^st and wettest of 



96 

these abandoned spots can be completely clothed with 
" grass, is hardly credible ; the only difficulty to be encoun- 
" tered is effectual protection from cattle." 

Pag-e 18. — The immense extent to which this species 
" of agricultural improvement may be carried, or rather 
" would imperceptibly carry itself if attended to, is scarcely 

to be believed. 

" The process of cutting out moss is going on steadily 
" in all peat countries ; but the conversion of the ground, 
" after being cut out, into profitable land, is practised by 
" few, and by those^only under the most favourable circum- 
" stances ; that is, when the ground is left sufficiently dry 
" and soUd to bear a crop of potatoes, to be followed by 
" rye, perhaps meadow. 

" But where the ground is wet, low, and soft, it is gene- 
" rally left to Nature to clothe such surfaces as she best 
" can. It is even very seldom she is aided by any attempt 
*' to level or let off the water." 

Page 20. — " Now if the small pbrtion of moss annually 
" cut out by such person or family be laid down with 
" grass, so soon as the turf-cutting is finished, the business 
" is done, and the meadow will follow close on the steps 
" of the turf-cutter, as far into the main bog as his in- 
" dustry shall have carried him. 

*^ I shall now indulge myself with a little Utopian spe- 
" culation on the subject, and shall suppose for a moment 
" that the feasibility of the measure I recommend is ad- 
" mitted, and the practice universally adopted ; let us try 
" what will be the result in my own country. 

" To suppose that there are in the Kingdom of Ireland 
" only 600,000 families using turf fuel, is a very moderate 
" computation ; and I know that I shall be greatly within 
" bounds, if we allow to each family, on an average, only 



97 



• 



" one perch English measure annually; that is giving the 
family 160 years to cut an English acre of moss: thence 
it follows, if this improvement be carried into its ex- 
" treme extent, — that is, if all the bog be reclaimed as soon 
" as cut out, — we shall add annually to our profitable 
ground 3750 acres." 

Page 25. — " I have thus opened to many in the North 
OF England, to more in Scotland, and to immense 
** numbers in MY OWN Country, a sort of domestic spe- 
culation of extreme lightness, when considered by 
them as individuals, but of immense consequence when 
" we view the probable result of their united efforts. 
" I invite in some sort the mass of the people to co-operate 
" in the improvement of their country, rather by imper- 
" ceptible attention, than by laborious or expensive exer- 
" tions ; and I stake my credit on the success." 

It may be thought extraordinary that I should make so 
long a quotation from a paper already before the Public; 
but it must be remembered, that the objects in view, when 
those two papers were written, were totally different: — ^that 
the former, a new style of improvement laid before a re- 
s|>ectable Board, the proper tribunal to pronounce upon 
the merit of all such Plans tendered to them. 

This second paper is laid before the Board of Agricul- 
ture on their own invitation; its immediate object, exphcitly 
pointed out by themselves, to Jind means of employment for 
the industrious and unoccupied poor. The Board of Agri- 
cttlture will not be displeased to find, that tlie two objects 
Coincide, and that when 1 find copious employment for the 
persons they point out, their labours shall contribute inost 
powerfully to the improvement of the country : 

" Alteriws sic 

" Altera poscit opem res et coiojiiTat aiiaice." 
H 



08 



The celerity with which the measures I recommend are 
to become productive, is a point of much consequence ; and 
I can establish it by a strong fact. 

In spring 1811, the Farming Society of Ireland proposed 
a medal of five guineas value for the best Essay on fiorin 
grass, I gave in one ; and, to prove quickness of return, 
promised, Avhen I cut my turf in April, I would lay down 
a. part of the ground from which the turf had been cut, 
and engaged to mow from it that same season a crop of 
hay of superior quality, and double the quantity, of any cut 
that year from an equal area. 

I called upon my most respectable neighbours, particu- 
larly the Hon. and Rev. Charles Knox, to inspect the 
ground before the turf was cut, and afterwards when the 
crop was growing ; and they reported, that I had com- 
pletely fulfilled my promise. The same ground was in- 
spected in Octoher, by Committees of the Agricultural 
Societies of the Stewartry of Kircudbright and 
County of Wigtown, who saw with astonishment the 
meadows cut, and made a most favourable report. 

About the same time, a Gentleman was sent over from 
Dumfriesshire to inspect these meadows, and his 
first question was — Where is your meadow on cut-out 
moss ? I took him there, and showed him the luxuriant 
meadow, pursuing the turf-cutter. He examined it with the 
greatest attention, aspertained the bounds of the narrqw 
stripes made after each year's cutting, and then said : " If 
I see nothing else, I am amply repaid for the trouble and 
expense of my journey T This Gentleman, on his return 
home, published his report of what he saw. 

The late Right Hon. Isaac Corry also inspected 
these meadows, and published his report in a letter to 



S9 

the present Lord Colchester, an amateur. 1 shall quote 
his own words. 

" I now inquired for my friend's experiments on bog, 
" particularly on cut-out moss ; being well aware of the 
" great benefit that might be derived from that descrip- 
" tion of ground being made productive. 

** He took me to the place where he had cut turf last 
" year, laying it down in September 1808. The crop 
" her^ seemed equal to any I had examined, and was 

in beautiful verdure. As I considered this description 
** of ground as my principal object of inquiry, I was very 
" particular, and made the mower cut in different places. 

1 found the sward enormous." 

I shall produce but one witness more to establish my 
successful practice of converting cut-out moss into most 
valuable meadows ; a name wliich I know will be respected 
by every English agriculturist. 

Mr. Curwen was so good as to visit me, and inspected 
my crops of every description with much attention, and 
published his report upon them on his return. When he 
comes to the conversion of cut-out moss into meadow, he 
says : 

" The view of this could not fail of moving the most 
" phlegmatic. My friend's persevering labours have de- 
" monstrated the practicabihty of converting millions 
" of acres in the United Empire, which are now unpro- 
" ductive : — what a benefit, to draw from a lifeless mass 
" an equivalent of victual, to the major part of what 
" is under tillage ! Permit me to say, in a country that has 
** so much worthy of admiration, no sight has afforded 
** me more gratification than such a produce on a lifeless 
" bog. What a source of riches is here !" 

The calculation I have made above, of the quantity of 



100 

peat moss cut out annually in Ireland alone, increased 
by what has been cut out in England and Scotland, 
and multiplied by the number of years in which the 
quantity of cut-out moss has been accumulating, will 
show that Mr. Curwen's phrase of millions of acres 
will not be considered merely as an hyperbolical mode of ex- 
pression. But the materials from which Mr. Cur wen and 
I pronounce upon the magnitude of this unhappy descrip- 
tion of ground, are very different. I speculate a priori, 
calculating from stated data ; while my friend, well ac- 
quainted with each of the three kingdoms, speaks from 
his own observation, and pronounces, vaguely indeed, from 
what he had actually seen. 

The meadows in England and Wales are estimated at 
six millions of acres ; and Mr. Curwen himself, several years 
ago, estimated their average crops at a ton and half to 
the EngUsh acre. Shall we be content with such scanty 
produce from the meadows formed in our way on cut-out 
moss? — By no means. Mine have never fallen short of 
treble that amount. 

Whatever additions then shall be made to the meadows 
of the United Empire in this way, a still greater diminu- 
tion must take place in the area now under meadow ; and 
much of this must be added to our present agricultural 
field, to the great increase of our stock of grain crops, 
and to the increase of the agricultural population, already 
(in England, at least) bearing too small a proportion to the 
manufacturing population. 

I hope I have said enough to convince the Boai'd of 
Agriculture of the extreme importance it would be to the 
whole Empire, to have the cut-out moss, scattered over so 
much of its surface, brought into a productive state ; and I 
hope the high authorities I have quoted, will also convince 



101 



them that the mode I have practised would effectually 
auswer the purpose, if extensively adopted and with 
spirit. 

When I first published my sentiments on this subject 
my own conviction was complete ; and it was not my 
fault that the important topic was not further pressed on 
thq Public, for the attempt was made and stopped in its 
progress. 

I occasionally brought fomard the subject in the cir- 
culating agricultural publications; but finding it not taken 
up, I began to consider who were the persons to begin, 
that I might endeavour to rouse them into action. The 
proprietors of the estates studded with these disgraceful 
Vact^ and patches, instantly occurred to me : these were the 
persons interested, as the reversion when leases expired 
was theirs. They possessed the means of assisting, and 
bad power to enforce; but the landlords through the 
United Empire were so unconnected a body, that I knew 
not how to apply to them with any prospect of attaining- 
attention. I found I must address myself to a particular 
proprietor, and, could I find great extent of territory ac- 
companied with public spirit and liberality in the pro- 
prietor, I might possibly rous.e exertion sufficient to set an 
example that would be followed. 

In my own country I could not hesitate. The Corpora- 
tions OF THE City of London, I have no doubt, are the 
greatest landed proprietors in Ireland, possessing nearly 
the whole of the County of Derry. Other circumstances 
determined my selection. The public spirit and liberality 
of the Corporations were to the Gentlemen (of that country) 
matter of great notoriety ; always ready to afford ample as- 
sistance on every public occasion, and only requiring to be 
called upon. I know their character was well draT^.-n by the 
poet ; 



102 



Dii tihi divitias dederunt, artemque fruendi. 

To these respectable Corporations I addressed a memoir, 
premising, that though well acquainted with their libe- 
rality, I did not call for their money. I went into the 
subject of cut-out moss ; stating, I presume, the facts I 
have mentioned here ; and showing, from the local circum- 
stances of great population, and a most frequent dispersion 

peat hog over the whole surface of the County of Derry, 
that it was more disfigured by unreclaimed cut-out 7noss, 
than any other county, and might be considered as well 
described by Tacitus — 

Terra in uiiiversum paludihus fceda. 

Relying on the influence these respectable Corporations 
possessed, and secure of the attachment of th«ir tenants, 
and of the prompt obedience that would be paid to every 
thing recommended by them, I pointed out the directions 
they should give tbeir tenants when cutting their turf ; a 
compliance with which would effectually prevent the 
further increase of these odious morasses. 

In case I should be mistaken in the disposition I had 
- assumed to exist, 1 showed how, by the mildest measures, 
their tenants might be compelled to consult their own in- 
terests, and to improve without expense and to the greatest 
advantage their own properties during their leases, with 
other matters which I conceived interesting to the County 
of Derry and its great proprietors. 

This memoir, together with a letter I addressed to 
himself, were given to Mr. Slade their Secretary, by the 
Lord Bishop of Derry : but neither were favoured 
with any notice on the part of Mr, Slade, or the Lon- 
don Society, to whom it was addressed. 

In the course of a long life, I had some experience of 



103 



the hauteur, and rudeness of oflSce ; and seeing I was not 
likely to obtain attention, after waiting- a long time, I re- 
quested my friend Sir George Hill to call on Mr. Slade 
for my memoir, that I might bring my sentiments on the 
improvement of my country before the Public through 
some other channel, that which I had chosen as a desirable 
one being shut up by the Secretary of the Society. Sir 
George's application failed. I then spoke to Mr. Slade 
personallijy requesting my manuscript might be returned 
to me, as I had not a copy. Mr. Slade promised it should, 
but I heard no more of it. 

Though my whole manuscript seems irrecoverable, I 
found one sheet among my loose papers, where it had lain 
three or four years. I shall quote it as it stood : 

" The question then I have taken the liberty to bring 
** before your respectable Corporations is — Are these 
" 3750 acres, as formerly, to be added to our national field 
" of barrenness and deformity ? or are they, by exertion 
" and attention, without expense, to be thrown into a style 
" of great beauty and high profit, adding every year to our 
" most valuable lands, and fully equal to any of them V 

I then detail the measures to be recommended to, and en- 
forced upon the turf-cutters, in their annual proceedings ; 
by which the portions contained in the County of Derry, 
of the 3750 acres cut out annually in all Ireland, wilj 
be reclaimed, and made profitable in regular course. 

I next call the attention of the London Corporations 
to the wide field of desolation, the result of indolence and 
neglect accumulated for centuries ; ,and I encourage them 
to encounter it. I tell them, " There is a mighty agent, 
" whom it has been the fashion to threaten to rouse into 
" action upon any emergency, the mass of the people. 

" Buonaparte talked of the thirty or forty millions. 



104 



*^ who would rise en masse, and overwhelm an invading 
enemy. Party, too, can make the same threat, and 
tell us of the millions that are ready to rise in support 
of their demands." 

" Let us avail ourselves of the same instrument, and 
rouse the population of ihe County of Derry, to the 
" encounter of these scenes of desolation." I then pro- 
ceed to show with what facility these respected landlords 
could carry this important point, and rouse the population 
of the county, to sweep these disgraceful morasses from 
the face of their county, in a few weeks ; — and now, after 
four years, in the hour of distress, I call upon the same 
landlords to employ the industrious and unoccupied part 
of the same population on the same work. 

The task I shall put upon them, provided I can get 
access to them, the usual channel being obstructed, will be 
very light. Several of their great leases having made a 
near approach to their termination, and one of the 
largest, The Drapers', having fallen, and in their own 
actual possession, their attention is brought more imme- 
diately to the spot ; and the offensive morasses I complain 
of, cannot escape their observation in the midst of a fine 
country. 

At this moment the Board of Agriculture speculate 
upon raising an army, to invade the unimproved parts of 
the empire — and where can we put them on actual service 
so effectually, as on the estate of the Drapers' propoi*tion, 
now in their own hands I 

Let me not be charged with partiality to my own country 
for endeavouring to concentrate general efforts, and 
bringing them to bear upon one favourite spot. The mea- 
sures I shall recommend are equally applicable to all 
countries ; and when I address myself to the Corporation 



105 



of Drapers, I tell every landlord in the empire possessing 
peat hog, 

Mutato iioinine, de te 

Fabula narratur 

I now proceed to measures of practice applicable to all 
peat countries. 

Let the Drapers' Corporation employ five parties of 
twelve each, composed of their industrious and unoccu- 
pied poor tenants, with an overseer to each of them ; let 
these five corps, under proper general directions, move 
about their estate encountering cut-out moss ivherevei' they 
meet it, and converting it into valuable meadows by the 
following simple process. 

First, light a few fires to form ashes for compost ; then 
level the surface, and make frequent drains, so as effec- 
tually to discharge all stagnant water, and then draw a 
strong fence round the whole area; — the great work is now 
over, and on this occasion I shall not, as on others, wait 
until Nature sows or plants for me. I desire the prepared 
surface be sprinkled over with a little compost, and then 
strings or stolones of the agrostis stolonifera (Irish 
FiORiN) to be spread on the surface, and the remainder 
of the compost thrown over them. 

This compost is to be formed of the peat or earth thrown 
out from the drains, and fence ; and the ashes to be mixed 
with it, will be ready in due time ; while the stolones with 
which it is to be laid down, are gathered in abundance on 
the spot, in the bog itself. 

I have now five corps prowling about the Drapers' 
estate, seeking what morasses they shall devour ; and I 
answer for it, the odious description vanishes in one 
MONTH fi'om the face of their territory — let us see at what 
expense. 

I 



106 



Twelve men at lis. per day, and an overseer at 2^. Gd.j 
amount to 4/. 5s. per week ; 171. Os. per month. : so that 
the whole five parties, employed for one month, will cost 
the Drapers^ Corporation less than 100/., and make the 
entire of their newly resumed estate presentable. 

But this hundred pounds I will not take off the Corpo- 
ration's hands in money ; they must in some sort act perso- 
nally, and adopt the arrangement I have laid down. I 
am ready to communicate or confer with their agent on the 
general management of these measures ; and a distance of 
17 or 18 miles need not prevent all, or any of the overseers 
coming to receive instructions from me, and encou- 
ragement from the inspection of my long-reclaimed cut- 
out MOSS, and a lesson on the mode of proceeding, 
where the process is still continued regularly every year. 

I cannot let off the London Corporations for the ex- 
ertions of the Drapers' alone, however strenuous. There 
are eleven companies more, exclusive of the London 
Society, all possessing extensive estates in the County of 
Derry, and all disfigured by the morasses I have de- 
scribed. 

1 consider myself as in the employment of the Board of 
Agriculture, raising corps from the mass of the indus- 
trious and unoccupied, for their service ; and I do not 
think I am unreasonable in asking one corps from each 
of the 12 estates, to be employed like the Drapers' 5, in 
waging a war of extermination on their odious morasses : 
the result, I answer for it, will be, that their Lessees raise 
similar corps, and carry on the same unremitting hostility, 
in conjunction with their principals : 20/. each is all I ask ; 
but, as before, I will not have their money. I insist on 
their own exertions ; and if I be gratified with the sum 
and the mode, I pledge myself to the City of London, 
that with their 324/. they will materially change the face of 



107 

the country they are interested in; while Parliament, with 
their twenty-two thousand pounds laid down, could not 
reach a single acre. 

The London citizens cannot be very general agricul- 
turists; but as many hav e villas, and grow their own hay, 
and all of them see the Surrey and Middlesex crops ; 
I am glad to seize the opportunity of showing them what 
this cut-out moss on their oivji estate may be made to pro- 
duce in a style of crop with which they are acquainted. 

Mr. Watt, a Derry merchant, holds some lands under 
the London Society, from which he has cut a deep co- 
vering of moss ; — meeting some Essays on reclaiming 
Bog, Mr. Watt encountered his own in the same way, 
with much spirit. 

Coming not long afterwards to Derry, and hearing of his 
proceedings, I waited on him, and went to see his ground ; 
which I found highly elevated, and so coarse, that I am 
certain the culture farinaceous crops could not have 
been pursued upon it with success. 

The Farming Society of Ireland proposed a 
premium for the two best acres of Florin raised in the 
year 1816; and when the amount was rigidly inquired 
into, and established upon oath, Mr. Watt's was found 
the best ; and he obtained the first premium, 50/. while 
the second 30/. was adjudged to another. 

The records of the Farming Society, and the English 
Farmers Journal for May 26, 1817, state the amount of 
the two crops, 2 acres each ; they v/ere weighed on the 
following March, to secure the hay being quite dry at 
the time : the one amounted to 5 tons 19 cwt. and 17 
pounds, to the English acre ; while Mr. Watt's reached 
6 tons 16 cwt. 3 quarters and 14 pounds. 

The London Corporations holding estates in the County 



108 



of Derry, would do well to inquire if the Surrey and 
Middlesex hay crops, stimulated by so much London 
dung, amount to one-third of what can be raised on 
their own estate on the very description of ground to which 
I am labouring to bring their attention, cut-out mosSy and 
upon which I am anxious to see their own industrious and 
unoccupied tenants employed. 



MEMOIR 

ON THE 

CULTIVATION 

OF 

FIORIN GRASS. 

DRAWN UP BY DESIRE, AND FOR THE INFORMATION 

OF 

HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS 

THE 

ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 
1818. 



PREFACE. 



THOUGH I have already appeared so 
often before the Pubhc on the subject of 
Fiorin Grass, I cannot decline complying with 
the wish of the Archduke John or Aus- 
tria, signified to me by Sir Thomas Ack- 
L AND ; who tells me his Imperial Highness is 
very desirous to obtain fiorin roots and sto- 
lones from Ireland, and particularly from 
mty with information and instructions on the 
subject of this newly noticed grass. 

That his Highness was now cultivating 
fiorin from stolones he had obtained from 
Denmark, and was desirous to compare the 
Danish fiorin with that of the country where 
the plant was indigenous, and first brought 
within the pale of cultivation. 

I feel myself highly honoured by the ex- 
pression of the Archduke's wish; and in com- 



112 

pliance with it, have thrown together, for his 
Highness's information, every thing relative to 
this grass that I conceive to be sufficient to 
make him acquainted with the natural history 
and habits of florin, and the proper mode of 
cultivating it, so as to raise from it such im- 
mense crops of hay as we are used to see it 
produce in this country. 

I return my most sincere thanks to my 
Danish Pupils for introducing my fa- 
vourite to an amateur of such exalted rank ; I 
well know^ the success with which they have 
cultivated florin in their own country, and 
the pains they have taken to make their 
neighbours of Sweden and Norway par- 
takers of the advantages they themselves are 
deriving from this grass, and for which they 
express so much gratitude. 

I am proud to flnd my protSgS travelling 
southward^ and may live to see the dominions 
of our Imperial Ally highly beneflted by the 
introduction of this grass; for when such 
eminent personages as their Highnesses the 



113 

Archdukes enter with zeal into agricultural 
pursuits, the improvement of their country is 
a necessary consequence. 

Moy, Ireland, Jan. 22, 1818. 



CONTENTS. 



The natural history — 'the habits — the culture — ivith the 
history of the original discovery of fiorin grass — and 
the successive additions made to its value — epitomised 
for the instruction of His Imperial Highness the 
Archduke John of Austria. 

Author pleased with the opportunity of giving up some 
practices he found it imprudent to persist in — a7id of 
urging the adoption of new ones of still greater import- 
ance. — Extreme ignorance of the agricultural world on 
the subject of grasses. — The gramina laid off by the 
Author as a distinct department for himself — Disco- 
very of the great value and strange properties of for in 
grass not accidental. — Curious results of early experi- 
ments on this grass. — First notice of fiorin stolones. — 
Author assisted by Sir Humphrey Davy in discover- 
ing th%ir continued growth and great value. — Author 
assisted by General Trotter in ascertaining the 
animation of fiorin, and the continuation of its vege- 
tating powers for months after being severed and dried. 
— Important results from this discovery. — Facility of 
propagating fiorin grass. — Facility of saving its hay 
in winter — founded on philosophical principles. — Im- 
mense quantity of fiorin crops — superior quality of its 
hay — greater abundance of its saccharum— all established 
by irresistible evidence. — Aborigines of the British Isles 
all acquainted with fiorin and its value. — The writers 
in the \7th century speak favourably of fiorin. — The 



116 



writers of the ISth century reprobate it. — Facility of 
raising great florin crops without breaking the surface, 
sowing or planting. — Spontaneous luxuriance of florin 
more easily excited in our worst than in our best grounds, 
— Reasons, k priori, why it should be so. — Mountain 
tracts peculiarly adapted to the spontaneous production 
of great fiorin crops. — These paradoxes necessary con- 
sequences of the properties with which Nature has en- 
dowed fiorin grass. 

APPENDIX. 

Instructions for cultivating fiorin. — Best soil for fiorin 
— its preparation — frequent weeding indispensable — 
also frequent top- dressings. — How to lay down fiorin- — 
how to economize the stolones when scarce — how to get 
into stock from seed. — Author ready to transmit seed 
to any one. — Proper seasons for laying down fiorin. 



MEMOIR 



ON THE 



CULTIVATION OF FIORIN GRASS. 



Though I have already given many desultory publica- 
tions to the world, on the subject of fiorin yrass, and 
although the value of my discovery be now well esta- 
blished and admitted ; I am induced, by the acquisition of 
a new pupil of exalted rank, His Imperial Highness 
THE Archduke John of Austria, to resume my pen, 
and, for his information, to epitomise the most important 
of them, and to give an account of the mode in which I 
became acquainted with a vegetable, that, notwithstanding 
its power of supplying man with the most important 
article in rural oeconomy. Hay of the best quality, and 
in treble -the quantity yielded by any other grass, had for 
many ages escaped the attention of agriculturists. 

Previous to the request from this eminent personage, 
(communicated to me by Sir Thomas Ackland) to 
transmit to him Fiorin seed, roots, and stolones, with in- 
structions how they were to be managed ; I had of late 
thought it incumbent on me, before I give up this favourite 
subject, (which must be very soon) to detail the progress 
of my discoveries; for, in the course of the eleven years 
L 



118 



during which I have been making experiments on, and 
cultivating Fiorin Grass, new properties and appHcations of 
this curious vegetable were pei-petually occurring ; and 
of these some of the latest will probably be found by far 
the most important. 

At the same time 1 must confess, that some of the appli- 
cations and practices, which were at first so promising as 
to induce me to recommend them to the world in the 
strongest manner, I have since been obliged to abandon ; 
finding that in the practice of years, the plant abated gra- 
dually of the luxuriance it first exhibited under them, 
shewing, after some time, that they were not to be persisted 
in with prudence. 

Of other applications of fiorin grass, upon which I was 
at first very sanguine, I begin to entertain doubts, which 
I think it incumbent on me fairly to state, leaving the 
questions open to future amateurs to investigate, using 
my own best endeavours to bring them to issue, if I can, 
in my own time; contenting myself, at present, with stating 
them openly, with my reasons for expecting favourable 
decisions, and also my reasons for doubting. 

From these concessions it may be inferred, that I am re- 
linquishing the high expectations I had entertained of the 
benefits to be derived from my discovery, lowering my 
tone, and receding from the lofty promises I had so often 
made to the world. 

This may be partly true ; but on the other hand I boldly 
say, that my conviction of the value of this grass has never 
been on the wane, and that from May 1806, when I 
first began to make observations upon it, until this moment, 
my expectations of the benefits to be derived from the 
discovery of fiorin, have been increasing, and my hopes at 
the end of every successive year more sanguine; — for, 
though I was obliged to give up some uses and apphca- 



119 



tions, that I had previously recommended, others were 
perpetually occurring, that more than compensated for 
them ; these variations being the consequence of the di- 
versified, and I may almost say, contradictory habits of 
this strange vegetable. 

The grand, and I am willing to concede the sole, use of 
florin is, to furnish dry hay to our Avinter cattle ; and that 
it will do this in far greater quantities, and of superior 
quality, from our test grounds, than they yield at present, 
are positions I have never in the slightest degree receded 
from. 

That its crops can be raised and kept up in continued 
luxuriance, on the same good grounds, on cheaper terms, 
and with greater certainty, than those of any other grass, 
I persist in asserting, having my tenth and eleventh succes- 
sive crops now making up, without a trace of diminution 
in their value. 

Important as these advantages may be, when an article 
of prime necessity is the object, yet they must appear insig- 
nificant when compared to what follows ; — for it will be 
seen, that crops similar to those thus obtained from our 
hest grounds, may also be raised from those we may call 
our worst : such at least as never before were supposed 
capable of bearing crops, either of hay or corn. 

Shall I be told, that the ingenuity and industry of man, 
supported by capital, may, at great expense, force cultiva- 
tion beyond the bounds it was supposed capable of reaching ? 
I reply, that in passing those bounds, I shall incur 
scarcely any expense ; for, that when obhged to cultivate^ 
the process shall be light and simple, and the cost far less 
than what is now incurred in preparing our very best 
ground for only similar crops : but that in the more ge- 
neral, and more extensive description of this new territory, 
upon which I propose to advance, I shall use no culture, 



120 



1 shall only rely upon Nature, with the slightest encou- 
ragement, for throwing up, of herself , the very florin crops I 
am so anxious to have produced, and for continuing them 
in steady luxuriance, at one third of the expence now re- 
quired to keep up the crops that grow on our best grounds. 

I have thus, in addition to my desire of gratifying my 
Imperial Pupil, two motives for now coming forward, and 
probably for the last time, on the florin subject; the one, 
to prevent some of my early positions from leading any one 
into error, either by encouraging the continuance of some 
practices, which I have found it prudent to abandon; — or 
by enabling the enemies of florin (and they are many) to 
depreciate its value, by pointing out instances, where I 
myself have found it necessary to give up its culture, even 
under the very circumstances where I had once most 
strongly recommended it. 

My second motive is, to avail myself of the oppor- 
tunity the late flattering application has aff'orded me, of 
bringing forward an agricultural subject, and of recom- 
mending measures, which I consider as of vital importance 
to the nation, in the administration of a Viceroy of 
known attachment to the agricultural interests of his own 
country, and who, I have no doubt, will warmly patronize 
and foster those of the kingdom over which he now 
presides : and perhaps the more readily, when he flnds the 
style of improvement which I hope to see further advanced 
in my own country, has already completely succeeded in 
Beinmark; and that its success there, has reached the 
ears of some of the most eminent personages, and most 
zealous agricultural amateurs on the Continent ; and has 
inspired them with a wish to see the dominions of their 
Imperial brother partake of the benefits so gratefully 
acknowledged by their Danish neighbours. 

Other governors, had I called on them, might have been 



121 



liberal, and possibly might have thought public money well 
disposed of, in promoting the improvement of Ireland ; 
and of course would have granted abundance.— I call upon 
Earl Talbot with different hopes and expectations ; — 
money I scarcely want, a perfect pittance will answer all 
my purposes : but should I be so fortunate, through my 
compliance with the Arch-Duke's request, as to attract 
Earl Talbot's notice, and to inlist his Excellency 
in a new agricultural pursuit, I shall draw heavily on his 
countenance, — his encouragement, — and even on his at- 
tention. 

Nor am I without hopes of contributing to his amuse- 
ment ; for the grounds upon which I propose to make the 
experiments, by the success of which I expect to en- 
courage practice on a larger scale, shall be all within the 
reach of his morning ride, so that his Excellency himself 
will not only be enabled to form his judgment of my mea- 
sures with his own eyes, but also to take a distant view of 
some of the extensive fields, whose present wildness does 
not discourage me from expecting to see them soon clothed 
with valuable crops of hay. 

From the sites which I hope to be allowed to choose as 
the scenes of my experiments, his Excellency can look 
down upon the wide field of highly-cultivated grounds, 
(mostly meadow) beneath him, and on his Southern side 
he will see the embrowned and desolate tracts, to which I 
mean to transfer the meadows that in future shall supply 
his capital with hay. He will probably be disposed to smile 
at my Utopian speculations : but when he looks to the in- 
calculable benefits that would be derived to the nation he 
governs, from their success ; and when he is told of the 
places, where similar measures have succeeded in similar 
situations ; and above all, when he shall be shown the 
vegetable 1 propose to cultivate, growing spontaneously 



122 



and in luxuriance, on the spot, in the very soils, and at the 
elevations, where I mean to give it the exclusive posses- 
sion, he will, I hope, repress the smile, and suspend his 
opinion, awaiting- for the result, which will enable him to 
decide upon the feasibility of my schemes, and also to pro- 
nounce whether the measures by which success has been 
obtained under his eye, be so light in expense, as to admit 
of being readily and generally adopted. The sites I 
allude to, and the measures to be pursued, shall be pointed 
out minutely, and in detail, when I shall have reason to 
expect that experiments will be tried on them. 

I hope my zeal for the interests of my own country, and 
my wish to see its improv_ement commenced on the field 
where I am most secure of success, and where the produce 
I can raise is most wanted, will plead my excuse for this 
digression. 

I shall now, for the information of his Imperial Highness, 
proceed to give some account of the original discovery 
of the value of this so long neglected grass, — of the order 
in which its several strange qualities burst upon me in 
succession, — my reasons for giving up some uses of it, 
from which I once had formed high expectations ; — with 
the increased estimation in which I hold others, having ten 
years' experience of the durability of this grass, and the 
pertinacity with which it continues its luxuriance under 
proper management ;— and finally, the facility of its cul- 
ture and propagation in our wildest regions, where every 
attempt to cultivate any other vegetable would be quite 
vain. 

My discovery of the great value, and strange properties 
of fiorin grass, was not accidental; the value and pro- 
perties of the several varieties of the grassy tribe, were 
the objects I was in pursuit of; and my discovery of those 
of the AGROSTis STOLONIFERA, (Irish Jior in) was the 



123 



result of experiments on this grass, instituted before 1 
could form a conjecture wliat the results would be. 

In my early agricultural pursuits, I soon discovered that 
the gramina was a subject, on which the practical farmer, 
and, his instructors the modern agricultural writers, all 
seedsmen, nurserymen, and agricultural hook-makers^ 
mostly from GruBtSTREET, were equally ignorant. 

This ignorance of the natural history of the gramina 
has been often noticed. Mr. White, in his Natural His- 
tory of Selborne, says: " But of all sorts of vegetation 
** the grasses seem to be the most neglected; neither the 
" farmer nor the grazier seem to distinguish the annual 
" from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, the succu- 

lent and the nutritious from the efry and jMzce/m." (Mr, 
White should have added the huloniferous from the stolo- 
niferous.) 

" The study of grasses would be of great consequence 
" to a Northerly and grazing kingdom ; the botanist who 
" would improve the soil of the district where he lived, 
" would be a useful member of society ; to raise a thick 
" turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of syste- 
" matic knowledge, and he would be the best common- 
" wealth's man, who could occasion the growth of two 
" blades of grass, where but one grew before." 

Whether I be entitled to the credit which Mr. White 
so liberally bestows, those who have inspected the grass 
crops I have raised on hleak mountains and cut-out moss, 
can best determine ; indeed Mr. White's praise, a thick 
turf on a naked soil, seems a prophetic description of 
many florin meadows. 

I could quote other authorities also, for the small pro- 
gress which this branch of agricultural knowledge has 
made ; but I shall limit myself to one, whose weight will 
not be contested with me. 



124 



My friend Sir Humphrey Davy tells the world, that 
of the two hundred and fifty-five varieties of grass, with 
which Nature has clothed our surface, man cultivates only 
two, RYE GRASS and cock's-foot : the former, though a 
kindly, is by no means a productive grass ; and cock's-foot, 
far more valuable, was first recommended to the agricul- 
tural world by myself; for though many of the farming 
papers mentioned it, I was the first that recommended its 
cultivation in print; and the only one who, by numerous 
experiments, investigated its habits and properties, and 
then made the world acquainted with its value, with my 
reasons at length for holding it so high as I did. 

Satisfied that information on the subject of the (/ramina 
was much wanted, I for some years paid great attention 
to this branch ; and at length, at the solicitation of a noble 
friend, laid it off as a distinct department for myself, and im- 
mediately published what I called. An Elementary Trea- 
tise on the indigenous Grasses of Ireland, requesting 
assistance and co-operation — proceeding so far as my then 
knowledge of the subject enabled me, and pointing out 
the topics upon which further information was wanted. 

I should not have mentioned this Essay, which I pub- 
lished early in 1806, were it not for a particular passage in 
it, which may now, when so much attention is brought on 
fiorin grass, be considered as a matter of curiosity. 

I say in that Essay, 

** There is also a grass which grows in our low grounds, 
** that I have heard some farmers talk of with much de- 
" light ; they call it fiorin or fioreen grass : I have taken 
" pains to procure some plants, but have not yet suc- 
** ceeded." 

Such is my first notice of this vegetable: Quae ab ex- 
iguis pmfecta initiis, eo creverif, ut jam magnitudine 
lahoret sua. 



125 



I soon obtained nine roots, with their withered stolones 
adhering ; I planted them in a plot, and, cutting off the 
long strings from the eight, supported those of the ninth in 
the centre with tall sticks. 

When the vegetating season commenced (for it was 
March when I planted them), the eight that were cropped 
began to project their stolones horizontally, while the 
bunch, apparently of dry hay, extending upward from the 
ninth, began to produce green buds, which, soon acquiring 
length, hung down in festoons to the ground, where they 
rooted, extending themselves along the surface ; while the 
erect mass increased in bulk, exhibiting a singular con- 
trast between the withered hay, and the green strings 
issuing from it. 

In this state I left them in Julj; and in my annual visit 
to the Northern coast, I commenced mowing my Portrush 
meadow, (August 1,) when I discovered that the sward 
was much composed of green stalks, without seed : — 
culmi without panicles, were quite new to me, this being 
the season in which most grasses produce their seed : — on 
attentive observation, I Ukewise found, that all these culmi 
came from florin roots, which also produced some stalks 
with seed. 

My scientific frifends. Sir Humphrey Davy and 
Mr. Greenough, happened then to be on a visit to me. 
I brought them to the meadow, and showed them this ex- 
traordinary appearance, new also to them. Sir H. Davy 
advised me to leave a small part uncut, and to watch what 
these stalks without panicles would come to : I did so, 
and observed them increasing in length, until unable to 
support their own weight, they fell down, still continuing 
to lengthen ; and that when I mowed the piece of re- 
served meadow, October 1st, its crop was double the 
amount of what was cut August 1st, and very fine. 



126 



This was my first discovery of the slolones of fiorin, and 
the first notice I had of a distinction made by Nature, be- 
tween two tribes, or genera of her grasses, the culmiferous, 
and the stoloniferous ; a distinction utterly unknown to the 
practical farmer, though there be many varieties of each 
description ; and some of the latter, as well as the agrostis 
stoloni/era {Horin) of high promise, as showing great luxu- 
riance, and containing much saccharum* 

I was now most sanguine in the pursuit of this new grass, 
and on November 15, 1806, after potatoes, laid down a 
rood with it, in the following way: — I raised fiorin roots 
in abundance, from my plots which had luxuriated greatly 
in the summer. I planted them in drills eighteen inches 
asunder, trusting that the stoloneSj with whose properties I 
was now acquainted, would, in the summer, shoot across 
the intervals, and clothe the whole surface. 

I was right ; in May the stolones began to project across, 
and so effectually to cover the new ground, that the rows 
were soon no longer distinguishable ; the thick fleece was 
uniform, and obviously a most valuable crop. I exulted in 
the easy method I had discovered of raising fine crops of 
hay, little suspecting it was the last I should lay down in 
that way; for that new facilities would be discovered, by 
which fiorin crops could be obtained at far less trouble 
and expense. 

I was now most anxious to see what sort of hay fiorin 
grass would make ; and the fleece on my rood was very 
great, which I had determined to mow early in October ; 
but in 1807 tlie weather had been so bad, that all crops 
were then still in the field, and much alarm excited, lest it 
should not be possible to save them. 

In this state of things, I had not authority over my own 
people, to induce them to give up matters of prime neces- 
sity, for the pursuit of what they called new whim of mine ; 



127 



and I was thus obliged to defer mowing my fiorin rood 
until December 6; and on that day began, with little hopes 
of being able to save the hay. 

The weather was not different from what is usual at 
that season; yet my hay was made up into trampcock, 
with as much facility as if it had been Juhji and was re- 
markably fine. 

Tlie vegetation of the mthered stolones, which I had 
tied up round sticks the year before, concurring with other 
circumstances, made me suspect, that dry fiorin stolones, 
even after they had been long severed, were still animated ; 
and I determined to try if my conjecture was well founded. 

My neighbour and friend, General Trotter, now 
commanding the Artillery in Ireland, agreed to assist 
me: we divided what remained of the hay into two shares; 
one we put into the house, and of the other made a cock in 
the field ; and ever>' second Monday we took some sto- 
lones from each, and laid them on the surface of pots in 
my hot-house, scattering some compost over them : they 
always vegetated until the middle of April, when failures 
began to appear ; these rapidly became more frequent, and 
before the end of May, the powers of vegetation seemed 
extinguished. The beginning of June was showery, and 
my little cock, which had braved the winter deluges, and 
the spring rains, now collapsed, grew fusty, and rotted, 
under a summer shower; like ^neas, when his tender 
feehngs were awakened : 

Quein primiim nan ulla injecta ?novehant 
Tela, nec adverso glomerati ex agmine Graii 
Nunc ventus territat omnis, sonus excitat omnis. 

The case was plain, for so long as life remained in the 
stolones, the vital spark counteracted the tendency to pu- 
trefaction ; but when that was extinguished in the stolones, 



128 



the mass of tbem, having lost their protector, soon rotted ; 
— philosophers having- discovered that the cohesion of the 
particles in animate and inanimate bodies depended on 
different principles ; — in the former, on the principle of 
life ; in the latter, on the chemical affinities : — hence all 
organized matter, animal or vegetable, so soon as deprived 
of life, having lost the vinculum by which they were held 
together, dissolve, that is, putrefy, and their component 
particles form new combinations according to their che- 
mical affinities. 

The facility of making up florin hay through the winter 
being established, and the principle upon which the success 
of this strange measure depended, being ascertained, I 
amused myself by exhibiting my powers, and made it a 
point to mow on the side of a great road for some years 
on the first Fridays in December and January, (being fair 
days,) to the astonishment of the numerous passengers : 
nor under these late operations did I ever see a handful 
of hay spoiled. 

I now took great pains to ascertain the amount, and the 
quality of florin hay crops; — that my own, for several years, 
amounted to from six to eight tons dry hay, has been 
proved upon oath repeatedly, before the noblemen and 
most respectable magistrates of my country. Last season 
the Earl of Charlemont, with the Bishops ofKiLDARE 
and Down, were so good as to stand by to see some 
perches of my florin mowed, and weighed ; and to certify 
the amount of the damp green-sward to have run from 
thirty- two to thirty-five tons, to the English acre. 

I consider my crops this year as very fine, yet every one 
that has seen my friend Lord Northland's, assures 
me it is superior to mine; and the Bishop of Derry 
often has raised as fine crops; and the Bishop of Down 
is now cultivating florin with equal success. 



129 



Tlie proceedings of the first agricultural societies in our 
islands, bear record to the great crops of florin that have 
been raised within their respective limits, and that their 
cultivators were honoured with premiums, after a rigid 
examination by respectable members of their own, and 
the examination, upon oath, of those employed in mea- 
suring the area, saving and weighing the hay ; — I allude to 
the Farming Society, Ireland, the Highland So- 
ciety", Scotland, and the Bath and AYest of 
England Agricultural Society; who have all previously 
encouraged, and afterwards in their proceedings recom- 
mended, the cultivation of this grass, I must observe that 
the average amount of hay from an acre of meadow is 
stated by Mr. Curwen, before the discovery of florin, 
to be one ton and half to the English acre. 

It has been objected, when the enormous crops of florin 
hay was stated, that this hay is not so elFcctually dried as 
common hay, and therefore must weigh heavier. 

To obviate this objection, the Farming Society of Ire- 
land, when they proposed premiums for the best crops of 
florin hay, made it a condition, to ensure its being in a 
quite dry state, that the weight certifled to them on oath, 
should not be taken before March 1st. 

A pupil, Mr. Watt, obtained the first premium £50, 
his produce of an English acre, weighed in March, amount- 
ing to six tons, sixteen hundred, three quarters, and four- 
teen pounds. 

While mine, to which the second premium was ad- 
judged, £30, amounted only to five tons, nineteen hundred, 
two quarters, and seventeen pounds. 

These amounts appear on the records of the Farming 
Society of Ireland, short indeed of those which were often 
stated before, upon high authority, to have reached eight 



130 



tons : but these were weighed in IVovember, and much losa 
must have been sustained by those kept until March. 

The quantity of florin crops being effectually ascer- 
tained by so many respectable testimonies, it remains to 
establish their quality; and this we can do in two ways, — 
a priori, and a posteriori. 

To commence with the latter; we have an excellent test 
of the quality of hay, the partiality which cattle show for 
it: and here we have witnesses without end. 

For years the horses of all strangers that came to my 
house, and especially those whose object it was to obtain 
information on the subject of florin grass, were tried with 
it, and there did not occur one instance, except in cases of 
hunger, where any horse who had tasted florin, would touch 
a bundle of common hay when offered to him; for having 
once smelled the second sort he rejected it, and looked 
about for the florin. 

My cows were often tried by the curious, and showed 
the same decided preference. It was a common trick with 
my children, to hide a bundle of florin hay, under a mass 
of common hay, and then to turn a cow to it ; the beast 
invariably smelt the florin, and tossed the bundle with 
her horns, until she got access to it. 

My sheep, in the same manner, always in winter fastened 
on my florin cock ; as, for years, I built two in my sheep 
field to ascertain the point ; and I am permitted to quote 
the testimony of my fiiend the Earl of Gosford, who, 
having slept at my house, observed, early in the morning, 
all my sheep gathered round the florin cock, and not one 
of them touching the common hay. 

Our proof, a priori, of the good quality of florin hay is 
equally decisive ; the value of any vegetable food with 
which we sustain our domestic cattle, is best estimated by 



131 



the quantity of saccharum it contains ; it is upon this rich 
juice, that its nutritive powers, as well as its gratefuhiess 
to cattle, depends; and nature seems to have bestowed on 
many vegetables, various portions of this delicious liquid, . 
which in a concrete form has become almost a necessary to 
man. 

The Americans have found a new source of it in their 
Maple-tree ; and Bonaparte, when he could obtain 
sugar only by enriching those whom he mortally hated, ex- 
pected to extract the rich juice from Beet-root. 

To establish then the high value of florin grass, we have 
only to show that it contains much saccharumy and. compa- 
ratively far more than any of the grassy tribe we are ac- 
quainted with — and this will not be difficult. 

By our own taste we can make a vague comparison on 
this point, between florin and other hay. Once as I was 
laying down my stolones, a neighbour took up one of them, 
and said, this is the grass children chew for its sweetness : 
— but we must have more decided proofs. 

My friend the Hon. George Knox, our first chemist, 
undertook to find the comparative quantities of saccharum, 
in florin, and common hay : I furnished him with the 
former, and he procured some of the best common hay in 
the market. 

I called at the laboratory of the Dublin Society, where 
Mr. Knox carried on his operations. When he had re- 
duced the residue from the two hays to a consistence hke 
tar, that from florin was hke rich molasses, while the other 
residuum was a nauseous and bitter extract. 

Mr. Knox's brother, the Bishop of Derry, encou- 
raged by this, attempted to distill spirits from a decoction 
of florin hay, and completely succeeded. 

I now applied to the Revenue Board for a licence to set 
up a small temporary still, and made the experiment eight 



132 



several times, and alwaj's succeeded. Many respectable 
persons called to witness the process. Among the rest, 
the Marquis of Downshire, Viscount North- 
JLAND, and General M*Kenzie, who all saw the still 
run, and tasted the spirits. 

I once tried carefully what spirits I could produce from 
a given quantity of hay, and obtained one quart double 
spirits from twenty-one pounds of dry hay. I do not 
state this as a claimant to the credit of having discovered 
a new source from which alcohol can be obtained ; but 
as a strong, though indirect proof of the great quantity of 
saccharum contained in florin, as vegetable saccharuni is the 
chief, perhaps the sole material, from wliich all our ardent 
spirits are extracted. 

I proceed now, as I promised, to state the instances in 
which fiorin hsiS failed to produce the advantages I ex- 
pected to derive from it, of which I had boasted to the 
world, and to enumerate my practices and application of 
this grass, which I have been obliged to abandon, after 
having long entertained most sanguine hopes of the great 
advantages that would be derived from them. 

I commence with Irrigation ; a practice carried on in 
England some centuriesago bythe Monks with greatskill 
and spirit, as appeared by the works found on the monaster}' 
lands by the grantees of Henry VIII., which they neither 
understood nor attempted to make use of, like their pre- 
decessors, who seem to have been most knowing on the 
subject. 

Irrigation, as now practised iu England, was the dis- 
covery of oneKowLAND Vaughan, who (as he tells us) 
got the hint from a mole, who, perforating an embank- 
ment, let a small stream run down a declivity, the verdant 
sole being much enlivened wherever the water ran. 



133 



Vaughan was vain of his discovery ; he published a 
long" account of it, with numerous Testimonia de Authored 
where the mole is not forgotten, and from some of which it 
appears, that the phrase a Roiolandfot^ his Oliver is of old 
standing, as the book was printed in JaiMES l.'s time. 

A previous acquaintance with the benefits to be derived 
from irrigation, was not required in the case of fiorin 
grass ; the luxuriance it attained in every small languid 
streamlet was sufficient to suggest the probabiUty of its 
being much improved 'by irrigation. 

1 made several plots of fiorin which I irrigated dif- 
ferently for experiment, and the measure succeeded with 
all. In one plot I made the surface rich, but planted 
nothing, leaving it quite raw. I poured a stream over this 
plot also, and vegetation soon appeared, principally fiorin ; 
I weeded out every thing else, continued to irrigate, and in 
two years found this plot gave one of my best crops. 

In the mean time I had been irrigating much of my 
fiorin meadows, apparently with great success ; and having 
thus fully satisfied myself , I published a letter on the ap- 
plication of irrigation to fiorin meadows, strenuously re- 
commending the practice. 

I was precipitate ; for I began to observe, where the 
subsoil was cold and retentive, that the luxuriance of the 
crops began to abate, and the fiorin itself gradually to 
vanish. 

r soon perceived that the progress of these failures was 
proportioned to the coldness and imperviousness of the 
bottom, and that in the course of years my lightest, and 
even gravelly soils gave up, under the continued practice of 
irrigation; — whence, though with great command of water, 
which I could pour upon many varieties of soil, I have 
totally given up irrigations of fiorin meadows. 

I was farther induced to abandon this practice, as J 

M 



134 



found irrigation greatly encouraged the coarse aquatics, 
particularly sprit ^ which I was not able to exterminate. 

I proceed to the second instance in which florin has 
disappointed my expectations, and obliged me to retract 
my high-soundino^ promises ; — I mean, as affording a steady 
supply of valuable lohiter green food. 

That such a resource for our house cattle would have 
been inestimable I well knew ; and when I saw my florin 
meadows affording immense crops of rich green soil, from 
November to March, greedily devoured by my cattle, I 
had no doubts I had actually obtained this great deside- 
ratum. 

I tried the experiment on a small scale, while my florin 
was scant; and completely succeeding, I reconanended the 
practice to the world. 

But when, by extending the culture of this grass, my 
quantity of florin became very great, the result was no 
longer the same ; for when I fed twelve or fourteen winter 
milch and dry cows, with fresh-cut florin, I observed they 
grew thin and out of condition. 

I now watched the process, and observed my people 
gathered the green sward, (necessarily very wet in the 
short brumal days) in large heaps, where it soon soured, 
and became unhealthy food ; and I found, that it was dif- 
ficult, almost to impossibility, to govern correctly the dis- 
tribution of the unwieldy and perishable mass, to a great 
number of house cattle. 

I have friends who ; having completely succeeded, still 
persist in the practice, and recommend the continuance. 

Means might no doubt have been devised, under better 
discipline, for correcting the inconvenience I have men- 
tioned ; and I should have exerted myself to discover them, 
had not a new objection occurred to the use of florin as a 
winter green food. 



135 



1 began to suspect that the latter growth of the stolone^s, 
(that is, the end of the string-,) was inferior in quality to 
the part nearer the root, and that the addition to its length 
made in the very late season, was weak and watery, adding 
to the quantity of crop, but that in very late, cold, and 
moist weather, saccharum was not formed. 

Nor was this all we suffered ; for I had reason to believe 
that the saccharum, already formed in the early parts of 
the season, was much dissipated by lying long in the damp 
mat, in the winter months. 

Hence arises a most important question;— i. e. at what 
precise period do the stolones cease to gain, and begin to 
lose saccharum? 

I took much pains to solve it this season, and think I 
can safely pronounce that there was no loss of sweetness 
before the 10th of October; of course, that our HAY mowed 
before that time suffers no deterioration. 

My condemnation of irrigation as applied to florin is 
decided ; its use as a green food, for at least some part of 
the winter, not so desperate ; the question is still in some 
sort ope?i to future amateurs, and cultivators of florin: 
should my own knowledge on the subject become more 
complete, I shall communicate it. 

My friends who practise house feeding, think my con- 
demnation of the use of florin in this way too decided, 
and are confident that by cutting the sward a week before 
use, shaking it out, and when aired a day, putting it in 
lapcock, though it may not then be quite dry, yet that it 
makes excellent food, until Christmas; — I believe they 
are right, but I thought it incumbent on me to state my 
own failure. 

The third instance in which I was obliged to abandon 
a practice that I had recommended to the world, is that 
of deferring to mow a part of my florin until spring. 



136 



This custom 1 gave up with much reluctance, on ac- 
count of its singularity, and the great convenience I de- 
rived from throwing a part of my process of hay-making 
into a season when the hay was made up with the greatest 
facihty, instead of the short December days, in which I 
had much to save. 

The quantity I saw was greatly increased ; and I never 
suspected a deterioration of quality, when I observed my 
cattle consuming this hay, with the same apparent avidity 
they eat my otlier fiorin. 

I only feared that by deferring to mow until spring, I 
should injure the succeeding crop ; I therefore directed 
my attention to this subject, and by careful experiments, 
ascertained that 1 might with great safety defer mowing 
until the end of March. 

Accident discovered how little mischief was incurred 
by leaving my fiorin crop standing until a strangely late 
period. 

I was offered a grant of land on Dartmoor Mountain 
in Devon, on condition I should cultivate it as far as 
might be with fiorin grass. 

While I was communicating with the late Colonel 
M^^Mahon on the subject, I reserved a portion of my 
fiorin meadow uncut, to furnish me with stolones, should 
I require them, at Dartmoor. 

At length the negociation breaking off, I mowed the 
portion on May 14th, and in the ensuing November found 
a sharp eye was necessary to discover the inferiority of 
this portion to the contiguous parts of the meadow. 

I gained nothing by surmounting this difficulty ; for, my 
suspicion of the hay losing its saccharum by being too 
long uncut, gaining ground at this time, I made the expe- 
periment decidedly, and going abroad for ten days at the 
end of February, I ordered all my milch cows to be fed 



137 



until my return on fiorin hay, mowed February lOtli, and 
looking- very fine, being well saved: — when I came back, 
iL found my butter indifferent, and that the milk had lost 
its richness ; so I pressed the subject no farther, satisfied 
that it was imprudent to defer mowing- until after the turn 
of the year ; leaving it to future experiments to determine 
how long in the preceding part of the winter we might 
defer mowing without injury to the quality of our hay. 

Though my knowledge of the great value of fiorin was 
the result of 7?iy own experiments, the striking features, 
and leading qualities of this grass had not entirely escaped 
notice; for the writers of the seventeenth century make 
such mention of it, as might have induced agriculturists to 
pursue the subject further, and to ascertain bi/ experiment ^ 
if a grass of such promise ought not to be introduced into 
cultivation, especially as both the sweetness and length of 
the stolones had been observed, — the two properties upon 
which the quantity and quality of its produce were likely 
to depend. 

Mr. Stonehouse, quoted by Ray, seems the first 
that mentions it, — it is noticed in Fuller's Worthies ; 
Parkinson, in his Theatrum Botanicum, printed in 
1640, particularly points out the sweetness of its stolones, 
which, as he says, " sometimes run to twentie feet longj^ 
while Ray makes them reach twenty-four feet. Camden 
mentions the trailing dog-grass, which obviously must have 
been the gramen caninum, supinum, longissimum, of Dr. 
How ; — Morison also makes particular mention of it ; 
audit is noticed in Merrit's Pin ax, published in 1666. 

The only writer since that century who has mentioned 
this grass without abuse, is my friend Walter Scott, 
who to his exquisite poetical talent, joins accurate obser- 
vation, and careful study of Nature. 



138 



This elegant poet, noticing the bones of forgotten war- 
riors, scattered over an ancient battle field, says, 

" The knot-grass fetters there the hand 
" That once could burst an iron baud.'' 

Can the florin grass be mistaken here? — the stolones 
running along the surface, occasionally rooting and fasten- 
ing down whatever they cross. I acknowledged to Mr. 
Scott my obligation for his correct description of my 
favourite. 

It is true that in the treatise on the Gramina, written by 
Mr. Sinclair, accompanying the splendid Hortus Siccus, 
which the DuKE of Bedford was so kind as to send me, 
and upon which so much pains had been expended at 
WoBURN, Mr. Sinclair applies Mr. Scott's descrip- 
tion to another grass. 

Had Mr. Scott studied Nature in the South of England, 
and had the battle he refers to been fought in that countr}-, 
Mr. Sinclair might have been right; but where Scotland 
is the scene of action, I answer for it no grass but the 
agrostis stolonifera has a claim to Mr. Scott's correct 
description. I speak with confidence of the natural pro- 
duce of the Scottish soil, having examined it with much 
attention, and in a great extent of country. 

The Aborigines of the British Isles seem to have been 
at all times acquainted with the value of this grass. I have 
had repeated proofs transmitted to me, that the early 
Scots knew it to be a sweet and good grass. 

The Welsh also claim it ; and Dr. Pugh labours to 
prove that the verdant meadows in Owen Glendower's 
demesne in Glamorganshire, were composed of 
fiorin. 

I myself found that the natives of a wild part of Don- 



139 



NEGAL, were well acquainted with florin, that tbey charged 
a higher price for this than for common hay, and that it 
was the custom to buy it for sick cattle, long antecedent 
to the recent notice taken of it. 

I have often lamented that my efforts to introduce florin 
culture into those parts of the British Isles whence the 
Aboriginal Celts had been expelled by the Saxons, 
had always failed, and that I had completely succeeded in 
England but in one instance; — even here my fair and 
noble pupil was herself a North Briton. 

England seems a sort of non-conductor, and stops 
the passage of florin to those countries that are desirous to 
cultivate this valuable grass : the Danes would have been 
deprived of the benefits for which they are now so grate- 
ful, had they not contrived to obtain it through another 
channel, and florin found its way to my imperial pupil the 
Archduke, not through England but Denmark. ^ 

I myself have been unable to procure attention to the 
subject, or a passage for my instructions, through the 
channels of office most interested in the growing prospe- 
rity of the important colony of Newfoundland, where 
the soil and climate are admirably adapted to this hardy 
grass, and where hay now sells at twenty pounds per ton. 

The prejudice of the English against florin may in some 
sort be accounted for, by the perpetual intrusion upon 
them of an inferior variety, the agrostis vulgaris, hard to 
distinguish from the true stolonifera : happily, the former 
is not able to sustain colder climates, and thus in Ire- 
land, Scotland, and Denmark, we escape from it. 

I have shewn 4hat the writers, both agricultural and bo- 
tanical, of the seventeenth century, had taken such notice 
of the agrostis stolonifera, as might have induced their 
successors to form good expectations from it, or at least to 
pay it some attention; but I was quite mistaken, for nothing 



140 



similar followed. These latter gentry seem to be as little 
acquainted with the writings of their predecessors, as with 
Nature herself, and to have taken no pains to improve their 
acquaintance with her, either by actual experiment, or 
further observations on this grass. 

They had indeed made a most important discovery, to 
wit, that agricultural hook-making was a most lucrative 
trade ; for that the public, anxious to acquire agricultural 
knowledge, bought whatever was published on the sub- 
ject. 

There were enough ready to gratify them, and, without 
taking the trouble to shew how they had acquired the 
knowledge they were so ready to communicate, pronounce 
upon all agricultural subjects, professorid lingudf as if their 
authority could not be disputed. 

It is not surprising that the readers of these compila- 
tions should not easily be convinced of the value of the 
agrostis stoloniferay when they find their habitual instruc- 
tors talking of this grass with so much contempt. 

I shall state what some of these gentlemen are pleased 
to say of it. 

I commence with Mr. Davis, the oracle of the Wilt- 
shire agriculturists ; he says, " The agrostis stolonifera 
" is one of the worst grasses, the peculiar plague of the 

farmers in the S. E. district of Wiltshire"—" it is of 

that coarse nature that no cattle will eat it." 

Mr. Don dreads lest under the recommendation of 
" old Stillingfleet, any agrostis should be culti- 
" vated." Again, particularly mentioning the agrostis 
stolonifera among the grasses not eligible for cultivation, 
he says, " there is no species of agrostis that cattle arc 
" fond of,"—" there is no reason to believe that any of them 
" would answer for hay;" yet my late friend General 
Vallancey sent me from the DUBLIN SOCIETY some 



141 



seed of the agrostis stricla, sent to the society from Ame- 
rica, as the best meadow grass, and the one chiefly sown 
in that Trans-Atlantic country. 

It even appears that Mr. Don had got some hints on 
the value of this grass, which he treats with contempt ; he 
says, Some gentlemen of considerable observation and 
'* experience have thought, that the agrostis was an eli- 
" gible plant for cultivation, and that it makes good hay; 
" but to this I am persuaded no practical farmer would 
" agree." 

He says, in another place, " a stranger is often asto- 
nished at the apparent luxuriance of this useless grass." 
He proceeds by ejaculation — 

" How much then must it interest the cultivator of 
" such a soil, to discover a grass that might thrive as well 
" as this, and at the same time afford nutritious food for 
" his cattle !" 

Mr. Don would rather cant and complain, than trouble 
himself to try with patience, whether the luxuriance that 
he admits he observed, might not supply his great desi- 
deratum, nutritious food for his cattle. 

Mr. Don concludes with an amusing apostrophe : " Im- 
" provident Nature! could you not, to enrich the agricul- 
" turist, have endowed some other grass capable of afford- 

ing nutritious food for our cattle, with that enviable 
" luxuriance so provokingly displayed by this useless 
" grass?" 

Thus it appears, that Nature, not content with sup- 
plying Mr. Don's great desideratum, a grass that will 
afford nutritious food for our cattle, but also that this 
same Nature, having obtruded it in various ways on these 
wise hook-makers, and repeatedly on Mr. Don himself, is 
charged with improvidence by this agricultural oracle, and 
this through a .publication calculated to convey instruction 



142 



to ttieir uninformed countrymen, the Transactions of 
THE Highland Society. 

Nor is this the only instance I shall produce of the mis- 
chievous use made of this well-intended pubhcation, by 
ignorant book-makers, puffing their approaching publica- 
tions through this respectable channel. 

I shall limit myself to one quotation more, and that from 
a book of great circulation, Mr. Arthur Young's 
Annals of Agriculture. 

Mr. Smith boasts there of a victory Se had obtained 
over a troublesome enemy, which he calls Red Robin. 
He says " his field had run to Red Robin to such a 

mischievous degree, that to walk over it was like ti'ead- 
** ing on a cushion," (the description given of fiorin grass 
by both friend and enemy) ; and Mr. Young himself is so 
good as to inform us, that Red Rohin is the agrostis 
stolonifera. 

Mr. Smith proceeds, "This Red Rohin by neglect had 
" over-run his grounds to a ver}' great degree ;" adding, 
" that any sort of stock would starve rather than touch 
" its herbage." We have thus Mr. Young's authoritj- 
for the identity of Red Rohin with the agrostis stolonifera, 
and for the aversion of all cattle to the latter. 

The seedsman, as well as the modern agricultural 
writers, have declared war against fiorin; the Board of 
Agriculture gave some stolones, received from me, to 
Mr. Salisbury, to make experiments on: he pronounced 
them to be coucli grass, and was indignant at being sup- 
posed capable of cultivating so vile a weed — he who had 
been regularly educated under the celebrated Mr. Cur- 
tis ; and some respectable strangers have lately written to 
me, requesting me to tell them how they are to get into 
fiorin stock, as the London seedsmen refuse to supply 



143 



them, assuring them, it is now ascertained, that the eulogia 
pronounced on this grass are not merited, the whole story 
being a mere humbug. 

I have not yet got over all the difficulties I have to sur- 
mount, nor detailed all the opposition I have to encounter 
in my endeavours to benefit the world, by making them 
acquainted with this valuable grass ; its favourite soil is 
attacked, and pronounced to be incapable of producing 
any crop worth the attention of man. 

Peat Moss I have often stated to be a most favourable 
soil for florin: yet the book-making gentry pursue jocat 
soil with the same inveterate hostiUty they wage against 
florin itself. 

What seems most extraordinary is, that these condem- 
nations of peaty soil, come almost exclusively from North 
Britain. Now I believe, that the unimproved and un- 
productive surface in Scotland, bears a greater pro- 
portion to its whole area, than in any other parts of the 
United Kingdom ; and of this neglected and condemned 
surface, I have no doubt, that if we exclude stony tracts, 
and inaccessible elevations, nine-tenths of the remaining 
surface is peaty soil, and this is the object of these gentle- 
men's reprobation. 

Our surprise will be increased when we look to the 
theatre upon which these anathemas against peaty soil are 
pronounced, and the vehicle through which they are con- 
veyed to the world; — no other than the Highland So- 
ciety and its transactions. 

This body, for which I have the highest respect, insti- 
tuted for the purpose of promoting the improvement of 
their country, is made the tool of mercenary speculations, 
and innocently seduced to give their sanction to the false 
and >vicked position, that nine-tenths of the unproductive 
parts of their country is incapable of further improvement. 



144 



In the 3d vol. Trans. Highland Society j page 18, it is 
said, — ** In the Northern parts of Britain, a considerable 
** part of the earth's surface is occupied by the vegetable 
** matter known by the name of peat, which, being in its 
" natural state unproductive of esculent vegetables, sets 
'* narrower bounds to national industry." 

Is not this a positive assertion, Xh^i peaty soil is beyond 
the pale of improvement, and that the exertions of indus- 
try would be thrown away upon it? 

Page 28, it is said, — " its incapacity of producing ve- 
" getables capable of being cultivated in its natural state." 

Page B9. — " The natural incapacity of peat to produce 
" esculent vegetables results from"-- — 

Here the Author, not content with asserting the unpro- 
ductiveness of peat soil as a matter of fact, proceeds to 
give wise reasons, a priori, why it ought to be barren and 
unproductive. 

Page 40. — " As peat does not yield to corruption, grow- 
** ing plants can derive no food from its spoils." 

Page 82. — " I have thus attempted to examine the 
" nature of that unseemly substance, by which a large 
" portion of the earth's surface in these regions is laid 
** waste, — investigating the causes of its natural sterility." 

I must observe here, that all this abuse of peaty soil is 
directed against its natural state, its natural incapacity, its 
natural sterility ; and that notwithst^mding this tirade, the 
efforts which I have lately been exerting myself to call out, 
have been much limited to peaty soil in its natural state, 
and to the rmdely-extended area gravely pronounced by 
such high authority, to be beyond the hounds of national 
industry. 

There are many other wise writers who wage war against 
this unfortunate 2?ea^ soil; but I shall quote only one more, 
who says, " The steriliiy of moss is a quality of much 



145 



more importance than any. of those that have been men- 

tioned; to endeavour to account for it, shall be my object 
" in the following Essay." Again, " The conviction of 
** the absolute sterility of moss is so deeply rooted in the 
" minds of nine-tenths of mankind, that every attempt to 

convert it into a soil is regarded as foolish, and given 
** up as a forlorn hope,'' He proceeds, 

" The very name of that substance, in all languages, 
" and all ages, signifies sterility." 

Chemistry affords this gentleman powerful aid in his 
war with peaty soil; for he elaborately shews, that every 
deleterious principle, every noxious element, are all assem- 
bled in this unhappy substance— joeaf. 

I shall quote but one passage more : — " The man who 
** discovers the latent causes of this sterility of all moss 
*' in general, and of each species in particular, will deserve 
" well of his countr}% perhaps of all Europe." 

I am curious to know what claims this gentleman will 
pronounce me to have on my oivn countr^y and upon all 
Europe, when I shall make it appear, not only that this 
sterility has no existence, but that I can raise on peat soil, 
in its natural state, and in the very area condemned by the 
Highland Society, as beyond the bounds of national 
industry, crops of hay, more valuable than any now raised 
in the county of Middlesex, with the aid of London 
dung. 

To . shew that I can actually do so, has been long a 
favourite object with me ; and all I ask is a fair opportu- 
nity to make the trial in the face of the world ; and I hope 
the vicinity of the field of action to our metropolis (the 
peaty mountains just above it) may tempt the proprietors 
of the soil, perhaps our Viceroy himself, to make expe- 
riments, the result of which, if favourable, would be of 
such incalculable national importance. 



146 



My ignorance of the soil tlirough the Austrian do- 
minions, preclndes me from knowing if my Imperial 
PUPILS be interested in the improvement of peaty soil; 
but their brother the Emperor's territories abound with 
mountains^ and these afford the finest field for raising florin 
in the greatest abundance, whether by cultivation^ or the 
more recent mode to which I am coming, of rousing the 
efforts of spontaneous nature, to clothe these alpine sur- 
faces w^ith either luxuriant meadow, or grateful pasture ; 
and their Highnesses may live to see the Julian Alps, 
and the Carpathian Mountains, affording as abundant 
sustenance to their cattle, winter and summer, as is yielded 
by their richest low countries. 

What satisfaction must it afford to the Arch-duke 
John to revisit the Julian Alps, so favourite a country 
with his Highness, and to call forth the exertions of the 
spirited and loyal Tyrolese, to the improvement of their 
country, which he had in more unhappy times so effectually 
roused for its defence ! what pleasure must he feel in 
adding to the comforts of a people so affectionately attached 
to his Imperial House, and in witnessing the gradual 
amehoration of a country so lately a scene of desolation, 
but now rising under his own eye, and by his own instruc- 
tions, into higher prosperity than they enjoyed before the 
calamitous war in which they acquired so much glory ! 

I now proceed to the most important application of florin 
grass that has yet occurred, — a mode of raising luxuriant 
crops, so paradoxical, that it was years after I had made 
the discovery before I ventured to communicate it to the 
world; for when I saw the efforts of agriculturists to 
cultivate the stolones, I saw them generally fail, and espe- 
cially in England ; how could I expect to be believed, 
when I should say that this grass would grow spontaneously 
on grounds where it was neither sown nor planted, and. 



147 



by the lorce of Nature alone, produce crops equal to the 
best I myself could raise, with all my experience of the 
habits of this grass, and the culture adapted to it ? And 
to make the paradox the more revolting, that this could 
be done on our icorst more eftectually than on our better 
grounds, and best of all on the area pronounced by the 
wise writers 1 hav e quoted, to he incapable of impi'oveinent 
by the efforts of national industry ? 

The position that I could save my fiorin hay with ease 
through the brumal months, had sufficiently strained my 
credit, to discourage me from hazarding a new paradox : 
yet, as in this case I had been able to prove from sound 
philosophical principles, that the antiseptic quality of fiorin 
hay, by which it was protected from spoiling like other hay 
when exposed to severe weather, was a necessary conse- 
quence of the singular properties with which Nature had 
endowed fiorin grass. 

In like manner I shall be able to shew, in the case of this 
new paradox, that the facility of raising spontaneous crops 
of fiorin at great elevations, is also a necessary consequence 
of the habits and properties of this agrostis, of which we 
are able to avail ourselves when thoroughly acquainted 
with the steady and regular process of Nature, in clothing 
our surfaces with a grassy sole. 

The circumstances that led to the discovery of these 
two paradoxes, and to the establishment of their truth, 
wer« the same in both cases. Solitai'y facts obtruded 
themselves, attracted notice, and excited curiosity ; expe- 
riments followed, and soon shewed, that ^what might have 
been taken for solitary instances, were in the regular course 
of things, and the steady process of Nature. 

The next step was to develope the priujciples upon which 
each of these strange paradoxes depended ; and I suc- 
ceeded in both, being able to prove that the effects, which 



148 



at first had excited so much surprise, were the results of 
natural causes, and necessarily followed from the charac- 
teristic and unalterable properties with which Nature, at 
its original formation, had endowed the vegetable . in 
question. 

The value of every discovery, at least in agriculture, is 
to be measured by the benefit which man is to derive 
from it ; that of florin itself, by the great addition it makes 
to our stock of winter provender for our cattle, by the su- 
perior luxuriance of its crops, and the greater facility of 
raising and keeping them up. 

The actual value of the discovery of our power of saving 
florin hay through the winter months, may not in itself he 
very great ; yet it enables us to abstain from mowing this 
grass, until the stolones attain their perfection, that is in 
October, as we are now secure in saving its hay, whatever 
severity of weather may occur in the very late season in 
which we are to make it up. 

This strange practice too may teach gentlemen upt to 
make so flippant a use of the term impossible, as they often 
do, unless they mean to apply it in Fielding's sense of 
the word, " as signifying not only what is veyy probable, 
hut frequently ivhat has actually happened'.' 

The value of the discovery that florin grass can be 
cultivated at great elevations, on peaty soil, at light 
expense, and luxuriant crops of hay raised there, must at 
first view appear immense, to those who are acquainted with 
the vast extent of this area in our islands, and who know 
how miserably the cattle of the inhabitants are stinted in 
winter provender. How greatly must this value be en- 
hanced to those who have given credit to the grave 
positions quoted above, that this whole area is unimprovable 
even by the efforts of national industry? 



149 



Can we rise higher in this climax, and give to our dis- 
covery a still greater value t Yes ; — for I shall shew, that 
in such soil, and at such altitudes, even cultivation can be 
dispensed with, and the weak grassy sole clothing the peaty 
surface, be converted by the spontaneous effort of Nature, 
under very slight encouragement, into permanent and 
most luxuriant fiorin meadow; a change effected every 
where in these dreary regions with the greatest facility; 
while in the lower country, and in the richest soils, we 
cannot effect this conversion, except where we accidentally 
meet with favourable circumstances, and even then not 
without considerable labour and watchful attention. 

To procure countenance and co-operation, in establish- 
ing the truth of these two paradoxes — to wit — That 
fiorin can be cultivated to great advantage in our bleak 
elevations, hitherto deemed unimprovable ; and also that 
the natural, grassy sole of the place, in the same situa- 
tions, without sowing seed, j)lantitig roots and stolones, or 
breaking the surface, can be in the first year changed 
into a luxuriant crop of meadow, — are subjects of the last 
importance ; and I hope I shall be excused for going into 
their subject at such length. 

In confirming these two positions, I shall adopt the 
same style of demonstration 1 have used in other cases. 

I first establish the fact, and then develope the prin- 
ciples from which it results. 

I produce testimonies, and point out the places where 
these measures have already succeeded ; and I hope to be 
permitted to repeat the experiments on a favourite theatre, 
admirably adapted to the purpose, and easily accessible to 
the amateurs of our own capital. 

I then shew from the natural history of fiorin grass, that 
these results were to be expected; and I state the ob- 
servations I have made on the habits of this vegetable in 

N 



150 



its wild state, and which will equally obtrude themselves 
on every person who chooses to examine the field I have 
selected, and hope to see consigned to my operations. 

These, as they originally excited me to make experi- 
ments, will, I hope, encourage others to follow my ex- 
ample ; and I am sanguine enough to expect, that in my 
own country I shall soon hear, the northern face of the 
WlCKLOW mountains has been encountered, and that my 
Imperial pupil is trying to call out the spontaneous efforts 
of Nature on the Julian Alps, 

The first instance that occurred to me, of fiorin grass 
clothing the surface spontaneoushj, and yielding a rich 
crop of haj', without any interference of mine, was in the 
year 1808. 

I had directed that so soon as the new cut turf should 
be removed from the surface whence they had been taken, 
that the ground should be laid down with fiorin grass, and 
also that a contiguous portion of green surface, under 
which the peat was too shallow fox cutting, should be dug^ 
and laid down with the rest. 

On my return home late in September, 1 found this 
latter patch (five or six perches) had not been touched : on 
inquiring why my orders had not been obeyed, some 
excuse was made, and I was told there were plenty of 
natural fiorin roots in the place. 

I had not time to lay down this piece regularly ; so de- 
termined to ascertain by experiment, what this natural sole 
would turn to. 

I immediately weeded out coarse weeds, and irrigated the 
patch regularly : under this process it gave me a magni- 
ficent crop of pure fiorin in 1809, and another in 1810. 
The aquatic weeds now were becoming strong, and in 
1811 abated the luxuriance of the crop ; I therefore 
abandoned irrigation, drained the patch, and top-di*essed 



it : tinder this process it immediately resumed its luxuri- 
ance, and continues to this day, to give me as fine crops 
of florin as my most highly-cultivated grounds produce. 
In 1809, my late dear friend and pupil, the Right Ho- 
nourable Isaac Corry, saw this patch mowed^ and gave 
an account of its magnificent crop in a letter to the late 
Speaker, Mr. Abbott, which he published. 

Four years afterwards the Bishop of Derry saw this 
patch mowed, and weighed a perch of the green sward, 
which equalled the best crop I had ever cut. 

The power of florin grass to take entire possession of 
the surface under favourable circumstances, was con- 
flrmed to me by other observations ; and I learned what 
circumstances would produce this strange eflect: still, how- 
ever, I had not courage to press so extraordinary a paradox 
on the world, as that a grass hitherto little noticed could 
be made to produce spontaneous crops, far superior to 
those which our best grasses were used to give, under the 
most skilful cultivation. 

At length, in autuum 1814, I received a jomt account 
from my friends Gen. Sir Jaales -Stewart, Coltness, 
Sir a. M'Kenzie, and Col. Lockhart, of a niagni- 
flcent crop of spontaneous florin, that had been found in 
the demesne of the last gentleman, member for Selkirk- 
shire ; and these respectable amateurs were so good as 
to transmit to me, a certificate of the v:eight of the crop, 
with the measure of the area from which it had been cut, 
taken by a regular surveyor; the amount by the area, pretty 
much the same with that weighed by the Bishop op 
Derry on my own meadow. 

Fmding my paradox confirmed by such respectable tes- 
timony, I no longer hesitated to bring it before the v/orld, 
and to authenticate it in the best manner I could. 

I selected one of the worst spots in ray demesne, — poor 



152 



meadow, with a cold retentive bottom, of sandy clay ; this 
patch, which never had been broken up, nor manured, 
annually yielding a wretched crop of coarse spritty hay. 

I called on my neighbours, the Earls of Caledon 
and GosFORD, requesting them to come and inspect a 
wretched piece of ground, on which I promised to raise, in 
the course of the year, a crop of hay of superior quality, 
and double the amount of any grown in Ireland that year. 

My noble friends were so good as to obey my call, and 
inspect the ground in February 1815, in its natural state : 
they were much amused at my promise of raising a great 
crop of hay, from so miserable a soil ; and still more when 
I assured them, I should neither break the surface, sow 
seed, or plant roots, or perform any other operation, than 
draining^ weeding^ and top-dressing with moor and ashes 
burnt contiguous. 

In October of the same year, I gave my noble friends 
notice I had performed my promise, and was ready for 
inspection: they came in November, attended by friends, 
on whom I observed them impressing the wretched state 
in which they had seen this piece (forty-eight perches) nine 
months before, but now covered with an immense crop, 
some in lapcock, but the greater part uncut — different 
portions of which were mowed before them. The two 
Earls authorized me to say, that the crop seemed treble 
the amount of those they were used to see cut. 

The crop produced in this patch in 1816, was still 
better; and in 1817, when mowed a month earlier, was 
very fine ; since it was cut, an unusually*dry October 
enabled me to save it without a shower. When it had stood 
a fortnight iu trampcock, it was weighed in November, in 
a drier state than I ever saw my hay weighed before ; and, 
by affidavit of the weighers, came to five tons, six hundred, 
three quarters, at eight stone the hundred, to the English 



153 

t 

acre; it was mowed October 2; had it, as usual, stood 
another month, it would have weighed a ton more. 

I shall quote but one instance more, among many that 
have occurred, of florin occupying the surface in great 
luxuriance spontaneously. 

My friend and florin pupil, A. Young, Esq. was cul- 
tivating this grass with much spirit and success, on the 
Pentland Hills, when I wrote to him to try what 
spontaneous Nature would do, without breaking the surface 
as he had hitherto done. 

Mr. Young replied, that so soon as he had received 
my letter, he took to the scene of his cultivation, Mr. 
Baird, of Shotts, the most successful grower of florin 
in Scotland; that they observed, contiguous to the cul- 
tivated part, a small portion which had not been broken 
up, and that upon this, he had a better crop than where he 
had laid down the florin carefully. My friend now lamented 
that he had broken up any of his grassy surface. 

Having estabhshed the fact of the facility of throwing 
grassy surfaces into great florin crops, I as usual proceed 
to the principles upon which this new style of proceeding 
depends. 

I have for a long time paid great attention to the com- 
ponent parts of the grassy sole clothing our soils of various 
descriptions, and at all elevations; and have observed that 
Nature invariably mixes a very great variety of grasses, 
and nearly the same in all soils, however different from 
each other ; that of these, those which are best adapted to 
the particular soil, come forward in vigour, assume the pre- 
dominance, and seem to be in actual possession of the 
surface, while the grasses to which the soil is ungenial, 
continue in a sort of dormant state, preserving, but not 
shewing their existence. 



154 

It is of great importance to establish the truth of this 
position, so as to secure conviction ; for the success of the 
measures I am proceeding to, depends upon the con- 
fidence placed in its truth. 

I am not now, as often before, discussing questions re- 
lative to the gramina in general, or proceeding to shew 
how the above position, or maxim, may be so applied, as 
to derive various benefits. to agriculturists from its appli- 
cation. I am at present limited to one grass, the agrostis 
stolonifera, and have only to show how we are to call this 
particular grass into action, and how we are to contrive to 
make it come forward of itself, and to take possession of 
our surface, in valuable luxuriance, in a field where great 
crops are little expected. 

The effectual inclosure and amelioration of a few 
perches of the most elevated grassy sole, contiguous to 
the military road, in its ascent to the Wicklow mountains, 
will soon shew what Nature of herself can do in my own 
country;, while a similar experiment in the Julian Alps 
will determine whether the.agrosfis slolonifera be the pre- 
dominant possessor of these more southern elevations, and 
whether it luxuriates with the same vigour in these re- 
gions, it displays in our own more inhospitable wilds. 

As the agrostis stolonifera is the only grass I have dis- 
covered, of which such important use can be made as I 
have promised, I shall proceed to examine as much of its 
natural history as is necessary, and to state the properties 
it has derived fi-om Nature, by which it is enabled to 
furnish such a profusion of winter food to our domestic 
cattle, in the very regions where it is most wanted. 

Our other stoloniferous grasses of great luxuriance, and 
abounding with saccharum, the aira aquatica and fes- 
tiica fluitans, are decided aquatics; while the agrostis 
stolonifera is ampMhioiis, \sith powers of sustaining the 



155 

extremes of wet and drought, to an extent that will scarcely 
be credited ; but I speak from experience. 

Making a dam for the purposes of irrigation, I flooded a 
ditch, with florin growing at the bottom. This was covered 
twenty-two inches deep, and for four years the roots 
regularly sent up stolones to the surface of the water, in 
good health ; and probably would have continued to do so, 
had not the floods of a rainy winter filled up the ditch. 

Nearly at the same time I <ried the other extreme, and 
planted a florin sod on the top of my garden wall, ten feet 
high ; here, without being watered or approached for four 
years, it continued vigorous, dropping every year a bunch 
of stolones, twelve or fourteen inches long; — nor did this 
root die a natural death ; it was destroyed in putting an 
additional building against the wall. 

- Though this grass preserves its existence, and even its 
health, under such opposite extremes, it luxuriates into value 
only under more favourable circumstances, for the soil in 
which it grows must be tolerably deep, and well drained, so 
as effectually to prevent any water stagnating about its 
roots. 

Another curious property of this agrostis is, that it thrives 
and luxuriates equally at the top of the mountain and 
bottom of the valley, indifferent to any changes in elevation. 
I even proved on the spot, to my friend Serjeant Foy, 
and some members of the Farming Society, that florin 
was more vigorous towards the summit, obviously because 
the rivals that crowded it lower down, left the alpine field 
to this hardier grass, unable to sustain the severities of the 
chmate. 

I have said enough to shew that to cultivate florin grass 
at great elevations, is no very desperate attempt ; for we 
may surely expect, that a vegetable fostered by man, 
protected from its enemies and rivals, and stimulated by 



156 



manure, wiJi thrive and luxuriate in the very same situations 
where it comes forward spontaneously, and grows vigo- 
rously, without any of these helps. 

But this is not all; for although, it may be often neces- 
sary to cultivate florin with care and labour in alpine 
regions, I have promised that it shall grow there without 
culture, and produce spontaneous crops of equal value to 
those upon which we expend our labour and pains in any 
country, high or low. 

To establish these extraordinary positions, I must recur 
to general principles, and shew that what I promised is 
not incompatible with the regular proceeding of Nature, 
liough my measures may be very different from the usual 
proceedings of ma?i. 

I^etus examine the population of the vegetable kingdom, 
as originally disposed by Xature, and we shall find on every 
part of our surface an heterogeneous mass of plants, 
crowding upon each other, and contending for the pos- 
session. Among these, man soon perceived, or was taught, 
(whether by instinct or otherwise, is foreign to our present 
object) that some were well adapted for his sustenance; 
nor could it be long before he discovered, that from these 
favourite vegetables, he could extract but little food, so 
long as they remained in tlieir natural state, pressed upon 
by rivals, impeding their growth, and diminishing their 
produce. 

The idea of giving to these favourites the exclusive 
possession of some area, must soon have occurred : hence 
distinct cultivation, that is, apiculture; which I have 
somewhere defined, a ivar between Man and Nature, 
contending for the possession of certain portions of our 
surface. 

That cultivation is an actual imr is obvious ; for man 
^-omm^nctshy extennination: he ploughs the ground, for 



157 



the purpose of destroying every vegetable that Nature had 
put in possession, and then sows his own seed, or plants 
his favourite ; repeating the same operation for every dis- 
tinct crop he looks for, to the exclusion of all others. 

I believe I am the first that sought to obtain an exclu- 
sive crop of a favourite vegetable by less violent means, 
that used conciliation, and compounded with Nature, not 
obtruding any favourite of my own, but selecting, and fos- 
tering one of those she had already put into possession. 

The general rule for calling one of these into more luxu- 
riant vegetation, giving it the predominance, and, if we 
can, the exclusive possession, is simple : select from among 
your natural green soles, a portion whose soil is congenial 
to the vegetable you wish to bring forward, — enhyen it 
with the manure that agrees best with your favourite ; and 
relieve it by weeding, from the rivals that crowd upon and 
encumber it. 

The particular rule for giving exclusive possession of 
our grassy surface to the agrostis stolonifera, is derived 
from the character and habits of this grass. 

The soil in which it delights most, is loose, dry, and of 
some depdi, whether peaty or loamy ; — any manure suits 
It, and it agrees particularly well with ashes and lime, pure, 
and still better if mixed up in compost. 

I say the soil should be dry ; this is indispensably ne- 
cessary : but I prefer a soil 7nade dry by many surface 
drams, to one naturally so ; for a soil kept wet, by a re- 
tentive bottom refusing a passage downwards to the de- 
luges of rain, is clothed mostly with the grasses that affect 
such soil,, and some florin among them. Change the na- 
ture of the soil, from wet to dry, from poor to rich, and 
the paltry ungrateful aquatic occupants pine and vanish ; 
while the florin, now in its favourite soil, comes forward in 
luxuriance, and takes possession. 



158 

I admit that in the great mixture of vegetables occupy- 
ing every green sole, there are some, wliich, with the florin, 
like a dry and rich soil : these, so long as the soil was sour 
and ungenial, remained in a dormant state ; but now that 
we have made it rich and drijy they, with the florin, rush 
into luxuriance, and would crowd; but here we come in aid 
of the florin, and weed out these rivals. 

In this operation we are much assisted by the habits 
which florin has derived from nature ; — first it luxuriates 
at a very late period, whence its rivals of early paroxysm 
of growth come forward in vigour long before it, and 
point themselves out for extirpation. 

Secondly, — the paroxysm of florin luxuriance, though 
very late in commencing, continues much longer in vigour 
than that of any other vegetable T know ; so long, that its 
stolones form a thick mat on the surface, under which no 
other vegetable can exist : — thus, while coarser rivals are 
pointed out for man to extirpate, the florin itself suffo- 
cates, and exterminates the more diminutive ones, and 
remains in exclusive possession of the field. 

Still, however, that possession must be watchfully 
guarded, and the destruction of intruders never inter- 
mitted. Weeding of meadows is « new task, disagreeable, 
and often omitted, and the consequence always fatal ; yet 
it is not very weighty , as I contract for the weeding of all 
my florin meadows at five shillings the English acre an- 
nually. 

It should seem that the measure of raising spontaneous 
crops of florin, was equally practicable from all grassy 
soles of three or four years standing, where Nature had 
time to form her own mixtures ; but in practice the case 
will be found very different in difi'erent descriptions of 
ground. 

The sole impediment to our success, arises from the ob- 



159 



trusion of rivals, crowdiog upon and interfering with the 
growth of our florin. 

Our natural grassy soles may be considered as of three 
descriptions ; — that covering rich low grounds, juoor, 
sour low grounds, and green inountain; each assumed to 
be suflSciently deep. 

In ricA low grounds^ our attempts to give florin the 
exclusive possession would be vain, the rush of obtruding 
rivals being quite irresistible. 

In cold, sour, loiv lands, we have a better chance of 
succeeding, because the change we must operate on the 
soil, will be injurious to the rivals in possession, and we 
may be able to weed out new intruders. 

It was upon such soil I succeeded so well in the instance 
I have mentioned, where the Earls of Caledon and 
GosFORD were so good as to witness my proceedings. 

Of all low grounds, Jlat, inoist, green, peat moss, is best 
adapted to the production of spontaneous florin meadows ; 
for, in addition to the change we must make from wet to 
dry, peaty soil is congenial to florin, and unfavourable to 
its rivals, and it affords an inexhaustible source of manure, 
more agreeable to this grass than any other, PEAT ashes. 

Mountains are the true field for raising valuable crops 
of spontaneous meadow : our agrostis is already in predo- 
minant possession of all verdant high elevations in our own 
mountains ; and few efforts will be required to give it the 
exclusive possession, as very few of its rivals are enabled 
by nature to sustam alpine severities; while florin is proved 
to luxuriate equally on the top of the mountain, and bottom 
of the valley. The declivities too of the surface, make 
drainage an easy task, and in all the mountains of our 
islands, peaty soil is predominant. 

The metropohs of Ireland is contiguous to an immense 
area of mountain, admirably adapted to improvement by 



160 



fioriii. Twice, at the request of the Irish Farming So- 
ciety, I have "visited and examined this dreary territory, 
and reported on its aptitude for florin cultivation; engaging 
, to supply the city of DubUn with all the hay requisite for 
the numberless 'horses it feeds, freni grounds hitherto 
deemed unprofitable. 

My speculations were then limited to the actual culture 
of florin ; for I had not at that time discovered the facility 
of raising immense crops of this valuable grass, without 
the trouble and expense of cultivation, by substituting the 
spontaneous eflbrts Nature to the labour of man, in 
preparing our surface. 

So soon as I was convinced of the feasibility of my new 
measures, 1 tendered my services to the Society, offering 
to superintend their execution myself: the Society was 
pleased to accept my offer, and a day was fixed for my 
waiting on them at their house, to arrange proceedings ; 
unfortunately, in the interval, the excellent state of health 
which I had been blessed with to a late period of fife, was 
interrupted, and I was no longer equal to the requisite 
exertions. 

But still my pen is ready ; and should I have roused a 
desire to improve the wilds of Nature, I am still able to 
direct the exertions of spirited amateurs ; and whether 
they are about to be made on the Scotch Mountains, 
where I am already employed, — on the peaty WiCKLOW 
Mountains, to which I have long looked wiili a wishful 
eye, — or to the new theatre I should be happy to open* 
the Julian Alps, — I am still able to direct the operations 
I can rjo longer superintend, and to communicate with the 
amateurs of any country who shall call upon me, and make 
me acquainted with their local circumstances, that I may 
teach them bow to avail themselves of them. 

Though mountains be my immediate and favourite ob- 



161 



ject, I am ready to encounter sterility in any fornio 
Certain that the accommodatingfiorin, under proper manage- 
ment, would clothe with verdure, and of course pasturage, 
many fields now assumed to be consigned to perpetual 
barrenness, and having got my foot in Germais Y, I should 
like to make an experiment on the Brandenburg heaths, 
at present so dreary and desolate. 

Since I commenced this Memoir I am called upon to a 
new and very promising field, the marshy (and I presume 
alluvial) grounds bounding the great American rivers. 

Mr. SwARTSWOUTH of New YoRK, encouraged, as he 
tells me, by the successful experiments of Judge Peters 
and others on European fiorin grass, is most anxious to 
have my opinion on the probability of its succeeding on the 
marshy banks of the North River, so as to enable him 
to supply the city of New York with hay. 

1 had formerly declined to encourage the gentlemen of 
Boston to cultivate this grass ; for finding I had be^n 
unable to persuade my English pupils to keep the fiorin I 
was teaching them to cultivate free from weeds, I feared 
I should also fail in New England, where the rush of 
summer vegetation was so much more powerful. 

I have given more encouragement to Mr. Swarts- 
WOUTH, and have transmitted to him full directions how 
to call into action the spontaneous fiorin which I know 
exists in the marshy grounds, and how to apply the mea- 
sures I have already so minutely detailed in this Memoir 
to the repression of its rivals, and to the transfer of the 
exclusive possession of his marshes to the grass he wishes 
for; strongly impressing on him the indispensable necessity 
of his own constant interference in the extermination of 
intruders, as well as in the careful discharge of all water 
by most numerous surface drains leading to sluices with 
outward opening valves. 



162 



What a field for improvement does our Chester Dee 
afford I I have had florin stolones sent to me from its 
muddy and sandy banks below high-water mark, for this 
strange grass agrees equally with fresh and salt water. 

I am proud to see my favourite passing, not fiom indi- 
vidual to individual, but from nation to nation, from Ire- 
land to America and Denmark, from Denmark to 
Germany and Holland, travelling like rhetoric of old: 

Gallia causidicos dociiit lacunda Britannos, 
De conducenda loquitur jam Rhetore Thde. 



APPENDIX. 



Directions for laying down and cultivating Florin, 

I MUST not forget, however important the disco- 
very may be, of our power to raise luxuriant florin crops 
by the spontaneous effort of Xature, (upon which I have 
dwelt so long,) that the actual cultivation of this va- 
luable grass is not only of great consequence, but the 
object immediately in view that occasioned the flattering 
call I have received, and to which I am bound to pay the 
most profound attention. 

I shall therefore lay down the very short rules, which 
those who wish to cidtivate florin should be governed by, 
and shall suggest the alterations in our measures, which I 
think may be necessary under a warmer sun, where summer 
vegetation is probably more vigorous than in our own 
moist and more languid climate. 

In the first place, I w ish the soil to be deep ; for although 
florin roots penetrate but a little way below the surface, 
yet it is of very great importance, that the loose and well- 
tilled soil should reach much lower. 

The ground should be already dry, or made dry, by 
many open surface drains ; for if water, whether atmo- 
spheric or other, be allowed to collect and stagnate about 
the roots of the grass, it soon becomes acrid, and highly 
injurious : this rule is indispensable ; yet occasional flood- 
ings, or even long submersions, do not seem in the least to 
injure this grass, if rapidly let off. 



164 



Fiorin must have the exclusive possession of the surface, 
that is, all intruders, especially other grasses, must be 
carefully weeded out, whenever they appear. I may add, the 
surface must be frequently top-dressed ; and these reno- 
vations will abundantly repay the trouble and expence they 
occasion. 

In laying down fiorin crops, we neither use seed nor 
roots, when we can procure stolones, of which every cul- 
tivator has a superabundance; and the mode of proceeding 
is very simple. 

We commence at one end of the prepared area, and 
scatter stolones, at their full length, over a space extending 
along the fence, and about three yards wide. I cannot 
determine how thick they are to be spread ; we know that 
nearly every joint will strike a root, and we must take care 
to secure roots enough. 

We now from the raw ground behind us take up shovel- 
fulls of the loose surface soil, and scatter it over the 
stolones, so as nearly to cover them, and thus the business 
is done for so far : we then take up another breadth of three 
yards, spread strings over it, and cover them in the same 
manner. 

Where we have tender rich compost, ready prepared, 
it is more desirable to drop loads, or barrowfulls of this, 
through the field, and to cover the stolones from these, 
rather than from the plain surface. 

It is thus I have clothed all my own meadows with fiorin, 
and I know not any annual crop laid down so cheaply ; for 
the stolones cost us nothing, and it is not a crop for one 
year only, as I have now my tenth and eleventh crop in full 
luxuriance ; and the sole of grass never seemed to require 
any style of renovation save top-dressing. 

Weeding, indeed, must be repeated, as often as intruders 
appear ; and I do not find the labour lessens with the age 



165 

of the meadow — but my contractor seems to think he has 
a good bargain, at five shillings per English acre. 

Where the object of the cultivator is to get into stock, 
and he has to procure his roots or stolones from remote 
places, he must use them more sparingly, and scatter the 
stolones thinly, or plant the roots at a greater distance; 
and to throw them into higher luxuriance, he must be 
liberal of his dung, or compost, which he can probably 
well afford, as, in the case I put, his area will be small. 

I would also in this case adopt the style I used in laying 
down my first crop, as stated in page 9x^fbr by stretching 
them in drills, we economize the stolones : the early 
weeding by the iy^on rake will be very effectual, and the well- 
defined narrow drills will be easily weeded by hand ; and 
in the instructions I sent to their Imperial Highnesses, with 
the roots and stolones I transmitted to them, I recommended 
the adoption of this mode, which I was further induced to 
do, by ignorance of the intruders to be expected in a new 
country under a warmer sun. 

Seed, no doubt, presents itself as the most obvious mode 
of laying down and propagating any grass ; and Nature 
has enabled this agrostis, as well as the rest of its tribe, 
to throw up great crops of seed, most easily saved : but 
the growth is slow, the plant producing neither seed nor 
stolones the first year it is sown; and the young seedling is 
so very diminutive, that it is soon smothered by the rush 
of intruders ; nor can it be relieved by weeding, as in the 
first year it is undistinguishable from other grasses. 

Still the great crop of seed fiorin bears, and the facility 
of transmissal from its very diminutive size, make it de- 
sirable to get into stock hy seed, where the distance is 
great; and in this case, 1 recommend the seed to be sown 
in flower-pots, first strongly heating the earth in an oven, 
o 



166 



effectually to destroy all seed or concealed roots of other 
grasses. 

The first mark by which the true species will be disco- 
vered, is the projection of the stolones over the edge of 
the pots; they will soon drop to the ground, which should 
be spread over with a little loose earth, to enable them to 
take root : they are not to be disturbed until the middle of 
September, when they will be fit to put out, and the culti- 
vator will soon find himself in such abundant stock, that he 
will no longer think of seed. 

That amateurs may not be imposed on by seed of the 
agrostis vulgaris (so common in the south of England) 
as is often the case, I am ready to transmit by post, a small 
paper of seed of my own sowing, to any amateur, on the 
sole condition of not being put to the expeuce of postage ; 
and as I have been called upon from Holland, as my 
correspondents tell me, by the advice of Dr. Bennet, Pro- 
fessor of Rural Q^^conomy in the University of Leyden, 
I shall, by the first opportunity, leave a packet of fiorin 
seed with my booksellers, Whitmore and Fenn, Charing- 
Cross, for Dr. Bennet, to supply his Dutch friends with; 
and I shall also leave a stock with the above gentlemen, 
should their English customers wish for a supply. 

I have often been asked what is the best season for laying 
down fiorin. Here, as in many other parts of his business, 
the farmer has not always an option ; he must do several 
things when he can, though it be not the most desirable 
time: to determine that, we must speculate a little, a 
priori, and consider what difficulties our favourite has to 
encounter in its progress, that we may contrive to avoid 
them ; none from seasons, for this hardy grass vegetates at 
all seasons ; the roots equally, and the stolones tolerably ; 
at the worst, that is, in the middle of wmter, the only dif- 



167 



ficulty to be dreaded is the rush of intruding- weeds and 
grasses. 

The best possible season must therefore be that, when 
this HOST of enemies is able to do the least mischief, which 
I find is from the 8th of September to the 25th ; for in 
this interval the efforts of vegetation are strong, and both 
florin and its rivals come forward vigorously ; but the latter 
is soon destroyed by the winter frosts, to which the florin 
is quite insensible, and remains torpid, or rather languid, 
until it is with all other vegetables roused by the genial 
spring, and in its vigorous progress finds no rivals to en- 
counter but those which are just beginning to vegetate — 
of course diminutive and weak. 

Had we commenced earlier, the intruders would have 
time to acquire strength enough to sustain the frost, and 
the contest between them and the fiorin would have been 
carried on on equal terms. 

This is all theory ; but, however sound, my own practice 
has generally been diff*erent, for the obvious convenience 
of laying down fiorin after a potato crop has commonly 
thrown me so late as November: but I prefer availing my- 
self of the nice state potato culture leaves the ground in, 
even at the expence of repairing in spring, the failures that 
have occurred from languid winter vegetation. 

If we lay down in spring, we have the enemy to en- 
counter in full vigour, and in this case I advise laying 
down in drills, that we may have the assistance of the rake 
in exterminating the weeds : but I totally condemn the 
proceedings of some, who, out of greediness, lay down 
fiorin like other grasses, with a crop of spring corn; when 
this is done, many small vegetables survive the corn, and 
encounter the fiorin with mischievous vigour. 

I once tried two ridges for experiment with barley, but 
never could master the weeds : I would long ago have 



168 



broken up these two ridges, and laid them down anew ; 
but I reserve them these seven years, to give ocular de- 
monstration of the folly of the practice by contrasting them 
with the clean crops on each side, laid down in the usua 
way. 

Nor is any thing gained by this cunning practice ; for 
by careful management we can secure a fine crop of florin 
hay in the ensuing autumn, though the stolones be laid 
down even late in spring. 

My most docile, and of course my most successful pupil, 
Mr. Baird of Shotts, Scotland, had a field prepared 
for me on the 14th of May : I began myself to lay down the 
stolones, to teach the novel practice ; two intelligent 
labourers having got their lesson, had the field finished by 
June 1st, and in November Mr. Baird mowed the best 
crop ever seen in that country. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



A Friend who has been so good as to peruse the pre- 
ceding pages, tells me, that I must not be content with 
showing, as I have already done, how I myself came to 
discover the value of fiorin grass; — but that it is incumbent 
on me also to show, if I can, how it happened that this 
same value came so long to escape the notice of man: — for 
it is objected, and especially in England, that had this 
agrostis really possessed such value, and was capable of 
producing such luxuriant crops as I have stated it to be, it 
must long ago have obtruded itself on the agriculturists who 
paid any attention to the natural productions of their re- 
spective soils ; the agrostis stolonifera being, as I have 
asserted, found spontaneous in all soils and in all climates.- — 
My friend also assures me, that, to his owri knowledge, this 
objection has contributed more to encourage incredulity 
on the subject of fiorin than any of the others so strenu- 
ously urged. 

I have long ceased to notice the silly cavils against the 
culture of fiorin, so often brought forward by hostile and 
prejudiced ignorance ; but as I know my friend to be in- 
fluenced by very different motives, I concur with him in 
thinking, that my Imperial Pupil should be put on his guard, 
and prepared with answers to arguments which, it appears, 
have been so successfully urged. 

The question I am called upon to answer is, — How came 
the great value of fiorin grass so long to escape the notice 
of man? 



170 



I shall commence my reply with the two last centuries ; 
a more enlightened period than any preceding, and in 
which more attention was paid to the study of nature and 
her productions, than in former times. 

It appears from the 21, 22, 23, 24, pages of the preceding 
memoir, that the botanical and agricultural writers of the se- 
Yenteenth century had been sufficiently observant of the na- 
tural productions of their country, that my favourite agrostis 
had not escaped them, and even that they suspected it to 
be of great value ; — how then came they not to pursue the 
subject, and actually to make the discovery ? 

Because their object was to detail to the world what 
they saw and kneiv ; they were not looking for new dis- 
coveries : in short, they were not experimentalists , and it 
is by a succession of patient experiments alone, that the 
properties of new^ or any vegetables, can be found out and 
established. 

Their successors had other objects in view ; they were all 
hook-makers looldng to profit from the sale of their com- 
positions and compilations alone; perfectly indifferent to 
the general advancement of agricultural science, which 
they professed to improve and teach. Their motives are well 
described by Horace 

Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere ; post hoc 
SecuruSj cadat, an recto Uet Fabula talo. 

It may be more difficult to answer the question I have 
put, when we open a wider field and inquire, how th« value 
of florin came to escape the observation of those who for 
so many centuries occupied, and availed themselves of the 
produce of our grassy surface. 

These are of two descriptions, Havmakers and Gra- 
ziers ; who applied the produce of the gramina to the 
sustenance of their domestic cattle in very different ways. 
Let us try if either of these had any probability of disco- 



171 

vering" the value of fiorin from any thing likely to occur to 
them in their own practice. 

I commence with the Haymakers ; — the Farmer has at 
all times availed himself of the first rush of the earliest of 
the culmiferous tribe of grasses — in fact, the most luxuriant 
and valuable of the description. He mows when he thinks 
the mass of the produce on the ground has attained its 
highest perfection, and he saves the crop for store ; he has 
no indication yVowi nature that the same ground is stocked 
with another grass of later period, capable of }ielding him 
a much finer crop. 

Should he have been by accident prevented from 
mowing at the proper time, the state of his late crop 
would have given him no information ; a thick mass of 
culmiferous grasses in a state of decay, with a few weakly 
green stolones peeping through them; the efforts of this 
agrostis repressed, and the growth of its stolones impeded 
by the crowd already in possession — nothing to induce him 
to suspect the real value of this grass. 

A haymaker, at any period previous to the discovery of 
fiorin, would have thought the man mad who advised him 
to root out all the early grasses that had hitherto formed 
his hay crop, as soon as they appeared ; his cock's-foot, 
his rye grass, h\s fox-tail, and his meadow fescue ; assuring 
him that nature of herself would give him at a later season 
a more luxuriant crop from another grass now growing in 
the same meadow, but which had as yet scarcely shown 
itself. 

Strange as such advice might appear, yet it teaches the 
practice he must follow, if he expects a valuable fiorin 
crop, as the result of his own deliberate culture, or of the 
spontaneous effort of nature; — and it is plain, that to this 
practice the most attentive observation of his own could 
not have led him a single step. 



172 



As the haymakers were little likely to make the discovery 
of the great value florin is capable of affording to them, 
though so abundantly dispersed through their meadows ; — 
the remaining personage interested in the value of grassy 
produce ( the Grazier )f is still less likely to make the dis- 
covery, as in no instance does it ever obtrude itself upon 
him ; for the bite of his cattle nips the nascent stolones, and 
should they by accidental protection escape the teeth of 
his cattle, the feet of the beasts would soon destroy them. 

The grazier even has often before his eyes strong evi- 
dence that his cattle will not eat florin stolones, as solitary 
strings frequently remain in his pasture grounds untouched 
by the cattle feeding about them. 

I shall state a fact: — Examining THE Marquis of 
Hertford's meadows on the edge of Loughneagh, with 
another object in view ; I was joined by some of his lord- 
ship's tenants who knew I was directing the cultivation 
of florin for the Marquis ; — one of these pointed out to me 
several stolones on the meadow untouched by the cattle 
grazing among them, and asked me if I was recommending 
the cultivation of a grass which it appeared the cattle 
would not eat ? I begged he would let us flnish our bu- 
siness, and, as we walked about, that he and his friends 
would pick up such stolones as they saw : a large bundle 
was thus gathered, and by my directions tendered to the 
flrst cattle we found, who devoured it greedily, showing a 
strong desire for more. 

The fact is, cattle are not furnished with organs adapted 
to enable them to pick up solitary stolones ; this would re- 
quire something like the bill of a bird : but whenever these 
stolones are gathered or severed, all sorts of cattle show 
a marked predilection for them. 

Since then the only persons interested in, and intimately 
acquainted with, the grassy produce of our surface, to wit 



173 



the Haymaker and Grazier, were little likely to make the 
discovery of the great value of this agrostis ; whose merit, 
and good qualities, as it appears, could in no instance 
©Intrude themselves on their notice; — who is the personage, 
from whom it might be expected such discovery would be 
made? 

The Experimentalist alone, who, without waiting to 
receive previous hints, speculates in some sort i priori 
on the productions of nature, and tries if he can discover 
them to possess any new and valuable properties, which 
had hitherto escaped the notice of man. 

I myself was not aware that nature had any concealed 
treasures among the gramina, my peculiar department : I 
indeed thought it possible she might; and if so, was certain 
that the present possessors of the agricultural school, 
th& London seedsmen, and agricultural book-makers, would 
never discover them. 

Under this impression I began to make experiments, 
and, to ascertain their respective properties, cultivated dis- 
tinctly every grass I could find, for some years : the un- 
foreseen result is the subject of the present memoir, drawn 
up for the information of the eminent Personage who has 
done me the honour to call for it. 



W. RICHARDSON, D. D. 



UBit\RY OF CONGRESS 




